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THE 



INTOLERANCE 



CHURCH OF ROME. 



BY H. A. BOARDMAN, D.D. 

Pastor of the Tenth Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia. 




PHILADELPHIA: 
PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION. 

PAUL T. JONES, PUBLISHING AGENT. 

1844. 






Entered according lo the Act of Congress, in the year 
1844, by A. W. Mitchell, M. D., in the office of the 
Clerk of the District Court for the Eastern District of 
Pennsylvania. 



ft 



m 



LC Control Number 



Printed by 

WILLIAM S. MART1EN. 




tmp96 028020 



EXTRACT FROM THE MINUTES OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF 
THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES OF 
AMERICA. 

Louisville, Ky., May 27, 1844. 
On motion, it was unanimously Resolted, That the 
thanks of the Assembly be returned to the Rev. Henry A. 
Boardman for his Sermon on the " Intolerance of the 
Church of Rome," and that he be requested to furnish a 
copy of it to the Board of Publication. 



ADVERTISEMENT. 



The Author was appointed by the General 
Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, of 
1842, and, having been prevented by sick- 
ness from fulfilling the duty, re-appointed 
by the Assembly of 1843, to preach the year 
following, the Annual Sermon on Popery. 
" The Intolerance of the Church of Rome," 
was assigned as the specific v subject of the 
discourse. The sermon was accordingly 
preached before the General Assembly of 
1844, at Louisville, Ky., and the substance 
of it is contained in the present volume. 



THE INTOLERANCE 



CHURCH OF ROME 



Ir was a remark of the late Mr. Cecil's, that 
" the system of Popery was Satan's master- 
piece" The observation will commend itself 
to the judgment of every enlightened and can- 
did man, who sits down to examine the great 
apostasy. The further a man of this charac- 
ter pursues his inquiries, the more will he 
wonder that such a system should have suc- 
ceeded in palming itself upon the world for 
Christianity. Nor will any hypothesis solve 
this mystery, but that which assumes the in- 
sidious and potent agency of the arch-apos- 
tate, both in fabricating the mighty cheat, and 
in giving it currency. 

This view of the origin of Popery, is not 
a mere speculation; for the apostle Paul de- 



6 THE INTOLERANCE OF 

clares that the coming of the " Man of Sin" 
should be " after the working of Satan." 

Satan was foiled in his assaults upon the 
Son of God. The temptations with which 
he approached him at the commencement of 
his public ministry, resulted in his own signal 
discomfiture. Three years later he succeed- 
ed in inducing Judas to betray him; but he 
found that in plotting the death of Christ, he 
had taken the surest method to subvert his 
own usurped dominion. Nothing disheart- 
ened, however, by the resurrection of the 
Redeemer, the effusion of the Spirit, and the 
other great events which betokened the rapid 
spread of the gospel, he seems to have re- 
solved upon revenging himself in a manner, 
and upon a scale, worthy of his exalted rank 
and unmitigated malignity. Peradventure 
Christianity may be overthrown. He will 
first try, therefore, the efficacy of persecution. 
If he fails in this, he has a surer alternative 
remaining, corruption. In both schemes, the 
kings of the earth shall be his instruments. 
He will incite them to extirpate the church. 
If they are repulsed, he will stir them up to 
embrace and caress it. His chief hope is 
from the latter of these expedients. He relies 
more upon subtlety than force. With the 



THE CHURCH OF ROME. 7 

civil power, therefore, he joins the ecclesias- 
tic. The ministers of religion must unite 
with crowned heads in despoiling religion of 
its chief glory — in secretly transubstantiating 
Christianity into a baptized paganism. This 
was the end he aimed at, and these were his 
chosen agents for effecting it. How early he 
commenced his work, is manifest from seve- 
ral of the Epistles. Before the apostles had 
finished their course, the evidence was befpre 
their eyes that some master hand was coun- 
tervailing their labours. Nay, they foresaw 
with sadness of heart, that the infant churches 
were soon to be overrun with false teachers, 
and that a grievous " falling away" from the 
true faith would take place at an early day. 
Thus the apostle Peter, in his Second Epistle, 
says, " There were false prophets also among 
the people, even as there shall be false teach- 
ers among you, who privily shall bring in 
damnable heresies, even denying the Lord 
that bought them." Paul uses similar lan- 
guage in a number of instances: and in two 
memorable passages, he predicts and deline- 
ates the approaching apostasy, with singular 
minuteness. These passages are 1 Tim. iv. 
1 — 3, and 2 Thess. ii. 1 — 10. Even while 
he wrote, the seeds of error were sowing. 



8 THE INTOLERANCE OP 

" The mystery of iniquity doth already work." 
That same mystery has been "working" 
ever since. The embryo monster developed 
itself by degrees after the apostles were gone, 
until at length it stood before the world, its 
gigantic proportions so complete, its form so 
symmetrical, its aspect so bland, that the na- 
tions flocked around it, believing it to be in 
truth what it claimed to be, the very "body 
of .Christ," the Church which he came to 
ransom with his blood. With a craft and 
energy peculiar to himself, Satan displaced 
one by one the pure doctrines of the gospel, 
and substituted figments of his own in their 
stead. Transforming himself into an angel 
of light, he transformed the church, or a large 
division of it, into an engine of wickedness ; 
abstracting, modifying, augmenting, accord- 
ing as its several parts required, in carry- 
ing out his plan. He left nothing as it came 
from the hands of Christ and the apostles. 
He remodelled its external form and organi- 
zation — changed the nature and functions of 
the ministry — created ecclesiastical orders un- 
known to the word of God — and multiplied 
rites and ordinances without limit. He robbed 
Christ of his three mediatorial offices, and 
gave them to the Pope — leaving to Christ, 



THE CHURCH OF ROME. 9 

indeed, the names Prophet, Priest, and King, 
but transferring the functions and powers 
denoted by these titles, to the bishop of Rome. 
He left in the theology of the church, the 
words atonement, justification, regeneration, 
sanctification, faith, repentance, prayer, and 
the like ; but took away the things themselves. 
He next applied his subtle alchemy to the 
spirit of the church, which, from being a 
spirit of love, and gentleness, and humility, 
was transmuted into a spirit of arrogance, 
ambition, and cruelty. In fine, the change 
he wrought in the western church, resembled 
more than any thing else the ossification of 
some vital organ of the body — so thorough 
was the transformation and so tranquilly was 
it accomplished. 

All this will the more fully appear on a 
closer inspection of that particular feature 
of the Papal system, to an examination of 
which these pages are to be devoted, viz. its 
Intolerance. 

In that prophetic portraiture of the great 
antichrist, which the Protestant world are 
agreed in appropriating to the Church ot 
Rome, this feature occupies a conspicuous 
place. Thus Daniel (chap. vii. 25,) says, 

" x\nd he shall speak great words against the 

2 



10 THE INTOLERANCE OF 

Most High, and shall wear out the saints of 
the Most High." And the apostle John, 
writing more than six hundred years later, 
says of the same power, " I saw the woman 
drunken with the blood of the saints, and 
with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus." 

The charge of intolerance might be estab- 
lished against the Church of Rome, by simply 
recapitulating the barbarities practised by her 
against the Waldenses, the Huguenots, and 
the Protestants of various countries. But her 
apologists would still plead that those perse- 
cutions belonged rather to the age or the in- 
dividuals than to the church, and that she 
ought not to be held responsible for them. 
This plea must be met. And it will be met 
if it can be shown that intolerance enters 

RADICALLY INTO THE VERY ELEMENTS OF 

the papal system — that it is thoroughly and 
essentially intolerant in its principles — so that 
persecution, instead of being a mere accident 
of it, flows from it as naturally as light from 
the sun. This position I shall endeavour to 
establish. 

According to the theory of Romanism, the 
spiritual interests of mankind are committed 
to the guardianship and control of the Church 
of Rome, whose bishop for the time being, is 



THE CHURCH OF ROME. 11 

the vicar of Jesus Christ. That church is 
the depositary of the Scriptures; the only 
medium of acceptable worship; and the only 
channel of salvation. The plenitude of the 
Holy Spirit abides with her. Her decisions 
on all questions of faith and morals are in- 
fallible. All men are bound to submit to her 
authority, on pain of eternal banishment from 
God's presence. She is at liberty to adopt 
any measures ivhich in her judgment may 
be expedient for vindicating the truth (the 
sacred deposit confided to her,) or pro- 
moting the salvation of men's souls. And 
she is clothed with jurisdiction even over the 
temporal affairs of men, to the full extent 
that she may deem it wise to exercise it in 
enforcing her spiritual claims. These pro- 
positions have their elucidation in the rivers 
of blood which papal Rome has made to flow 
in the name of Jesus of Nazareth. If we 
sanction her pretensions, we cannot consist- 
ently rebuke her cruelties: we must at least 
acknowledge that her theory and practice are 
accordant, the one with the other. For (as 
a very able modern writer has observed) 
"the papal authority is distinguished from 
all others on earth, by being a supernatural 
authority; and therefore it may boldly pur- 



12 THE INTOLERANCE OF 

sue its ends and fulfil its duty, as guardian of 
truth, without scruple, hesitation, or any weak 
and wavering regard to considerations of 
mercy. Upon all those occasions when the 
frailty of the human heart might make the 
chastising hand of authority to tremble, re- 
currence is to be had to that prime principle 
— the supreme and infinite importance of 
religion: but religion cannot exist apart from 
the truth, which is its basis. Truth, then, 
must be preserved and defended, at whatever 
cost. Better, if necessary, or if no milder 
remedy can avail, better that some hundred 
thousand heretics should perish in the flames, 
than that heresy itself — immortal poison as 
it is-r-should be permitted to infect the souls 
of men at large. Better that an heretical 
prince should be deposed, his kingdom placed 
under an interdict, and wasted, year after 
year, by bands of faithful crusaders, than 
that Christendom should be exposed to a 
fast-spreading contagion which carries eter- 
nal death in its train. 

" Not only may the Church resort to these 
or to any other extreme means for preserving 
the truth; but she is bound to do so; she has 
no choice; to profess principles of toleration, 
in subserviency to the lax notions of modern 



THE CHURCH OF ROME. 13 

times, would be, on her part, to forfeit con- 
sistency, and in the most fatal and traitorous 
manner to abandon the high ground on which 
her authority is reared. 

"The duty of using the most extreme means 
for the preservation of the truth, or in com- 
mon Protestant parlance, the practice of per- 
secution, is a necessary element of this church 
theory. Without it, there is no longer har- 
mony in the scheme, consistency in the pro- 
fessions of its supporters, safety to the insti- 
tution, nor any probability of its extension."* 

That this reasoning proceeds upon a fair 
interpretation of the principles of Popery, 
will be evident, if we take a somewhat near- 
er view of the system. 

In the first place — and we urge it as a 
prime argument in proof of the intolerance 
of the system — the Church of Rome denies 
the right of private judgment in matters of 
faith and morals. 

"The Catholic Church (says Dr. Milner, 
in his 'End of Controversy/) is the divinely 
commissioned guardian and interpreter of the 
word of God; and therefore the method ap- 
pointed by Christ, for learning what he has 

* Spiritual Despotism, pp. 237, 8. 



14 THE INTOLERANCE OF 

taught on the various articles of his religion, 
is to hear the Church propounding them." 
" Thus you have only to hear," he proceeds, 
" what the Church teaches upon the several 
articles of her faith, in order to know with 
certainty what God has revealed concerning 
them." The Council of Trent, having an- 
athematized all who reject the apocrypha and 
unwritten traditions as destitute of canonical 
authority, decrees that no one, "confiding in 
his own judgment, shall" under penalty of 
anathema, < ; dare to wrest the sacred Scrip- 
tures to his own sense of them, contrary to 
that which hath been held and still is held by 
holy mother Church, whose right it is to judge 
of the true meaning and interpretation of Sa- 
cred Writ; or contrary to the unanimous con- 
sent of the fathers — even though such inter- 
pretations should never be published." 

Even these provisions, however, were 
deemed inadequate to guard the Scriptures 
from perversion. Nothing will answer but 
the Bible must be taken out of the hands of 
the people. The Congregation of the Index, 
therefore, having affirmed that the "indis- 
criminate use" of the Scriptures will produce 
" more evil than good," direct that no indi- 
vidual shall publish, circulate, own, or read, 



THE CHURCH OF ROME. 15 

the Bible, without permission obtained "in 
writing" from his bishop or inquisitor. 

Still Rome is not satisfied. If men are cut 
off from the Bible, they may read something 
else. Not only the sun must be put out, but 
the stars. The Church stretches her iron rod 
over the whole field of literature. She col- 
lects together the noblest works in every lan- 
guage, published since the revival of letters, 
and locks them up in a Prohibitory Index, 
sealed with her own terrible anathema. 
While another very large class of works, 
including the Christian Fathers, which she 
cannot afford to dispense with entirely, are 
enrolled in an Index Expurgatorius — i. e. an 
index that prescribes the passages which are 
to be expunged or modified, before the books 
can be safely circulated. 

In this way Rome claims the right to con- 
trol the reading of the ivorld. No man, 
such is her theory, may lawfully peruse any 
book which she has put under ban, without 
a dispensation. All works on the contro- 
versy between Romanists and Protestants, 
by whomsoever written, are prohibited. So 
also the writings of Romanists in controversy 
with one another, whenever they may be 
adapted to open the eyes of the people to the 



16 THE INTOLERANCE OF 

true character of the system. In illustration 
of this, and as a proof that this country is not 
exempted from the operation of these rules, 
it may be mentioned, that one of the last edi- 
tions of the Roman Index, under date of Sep- 
tember 6, 1822, includes the various pamph- 
lets published in the course of the famous 
feud in St. Mary's church, in the city of 
Philadelphia, some twenty or twenty-five 
years ago.* No Roman Catholic, even in 
this free country, is at liberty to read one of 
those pamphlets, without permission of his 
bishop. The same may be said respecting 
Prof. Ranke's History of the Popes, published 
three or four years ago in Berlin, and since 
republished in England and the United States. 
That work was scarcely through the press, 
before it was enrolled in the Prohibitory In- 
dex. Even the British Classics have not es- 
caped. Milton, Cowper, Addison, and their 
compeers, have the honour to be registered 
in the same catalogue with the illustrious 
Reformers of Britain and the continent. 

We have not yet reached the limits of 
Papal despotism. Other tyrants are satisfied 
with incarcerating the bodies of their victims. 

* Mendham's Literary Policy of the Church of Rome, 
second edition, p. 265. 



THE CHURCH OF ROME. 17 

Rome binds her fetters upon the intellect, and 
strikes her iron into the soul. She not only 
removes as far as possible from the people 
the means of knowledge, and discourages 
investigation, but establishes an inquisition 
in every marts breast, and challenges juris- 
diction over his thoughts. A Romanist, if he 
is so fortunate as to obtain leave to read the 
Bible, cannot interpret it for himself. He 
must receive every sentence as the Church 
expounds it, and agreeably to that theologi- 
cal nonentity, the " consent of all the fathers." 
" The whole right to the Scriptures (says Mil- 
ner) belongs to the Church. She has pre- 
served them; she vouches for them; and she 
alone, by comparing the several passages 
with each other, and with tradition, authori- 
tatively explains them. Hence it is impossi- 
ble that the real sense of Scripture should 
ever be against her and her doctrines; and 
hence, of course, I might quash every objec- 
tion which you can draw from every passage 
in it, by this short reply: ' The Church under- 
stands the passage differently from you; there- 
fore you mistake its meaning/ " This is the 
liberty of thought allowed by the Papal 
Hierarchy. A Popish priest may quash 
every objection which you can draw from 



IS THE INTOLERANCE OF 

the word of God, not by dint of argument, 
not by pointing out the unsoundness of your 
principles of interpretation, not by exposing 
the errors of your exegesis, but by simply tell- 
ing you, "The Church understands the pas- 
sage differently; therefore you are wrong." I 
stop not now to comment on the absurdity of 
any Romish ecclesiastic's undertaking to pro- 
nounce, ex cathedra, how "the Church" (all 
the fathers included) understands every pas- 
sage of Scripture; but I would call the atten- 
tion of the reader to the intolerance involved 
in the principle here asserted. Men have no 
right to think, in studying the Scriptures, ex- 
cept in the line of the Church. And if they hap- 
pen, in the exercise of their rational powers, to 
diverge from this line, they are to be brought 
back, not by argument, but by authority; not 
by being instructed and reasoned with, but 
by being told, "The Church has decided 
otherwise: bow to her decision, or take the 
consequences." What these consequences 
are, we shall see by and by. The point to 
be noted here, is, that " the Church" thrusts 
herself in between man and his Cod, and 
claims to exercise the authority of God over 
him. The Pope "opposeth and exalteth him- 
self above all that is called God, or that is 



THE CHURCH OF ROME. 19 

worshipped; so that he, as God,sitteth in the 
temple of God, showing himself that he is 
God." It is not God who speaks to the Ro- 
manist, in the Bible; but the Church. We 
have no right to hear God speak, except 
through the Church. We sin if we even 
think that he says any thing else to us, than 
what the Church tells us he says. We must 
believe that when we " hear the Church," we 
hear God, although the Church may utter 
what insults our reason and belies every one 
of our senses. 

This, it will be admitted, is a tolerably 
refined tyranny. But there is one link want- 
ing to make the chain complete. " You have 
proved," it may be said, " that the Church of 
Rome allows no liberty of thought: but are 
not a man's thoughts his own? may I not 
cherish what opinions I choose, by keeping 
them to myself?" I might answer, that opin- 
ions, and especially opinions in religion, are 
of little value, unless we are left, free to act 
upon them. But it is more to my purpose, 
in delineating the intolerance of this system, 
to state, that the Romish Church does not 
permit men to "keep their opinions to them- 
selves." As if to silence all doubt of her iden- 
tity with the " man of sin," self-enthroned in 



20 THE INTOLERANCE OF 

God's temple, she claims the prerogative of 
searching the heart. Men are dragged to the 
confessional, and there compelled, under pain 
of anathema, to disclose the secrets of their 
hearts to a priest. This priest may at the 
time " be living in mortal sin," and yet he is 
competent (so the Council of Trent declares) 
" to exercise the function of forgiving sins, 
as the Minister of Christ:" nay, in him (adds 
the catechism of the Council of Trent,) " the 
penitent venerates the power and person of 
our Lord Jesus Christ; for in the administra- 
tion of this, as well as of other sacraments, 
the priest represents the character and per- 
forms the functions of Jesus Christ." It is 
only necessary to examine some standard 
Popish author, like Peter Dens, or even a 
Popish Missal or Prayer Book, to see how 
inquisitorial is the scrutiny to which the 
bosoms of men are subjected at the confes- 
sional. Not merely their actions and words, 
their formal plans and habitual purposes are 
made to pass in review before the priest; but 
his eye is permitted to explore the deepest 
recesses of the heart, and its transient impres- 
sions and emotions are poured into his ear ; 
and that, although the priest may be a de- 
bauchee, and the penitent a youthful and 



THE CHURCH OF ROME. 21 

modest female ! It is a fundamental principle 
with Rome, that men shall not only acknow- 
ledge her authority, and conform to her rites, 
but think as she thinks. Her empire is co- 
extensive with the workings of the human 
mind. Her censorship of the press, is but a 
type of her censorship of men's lips and 
hearts. And the tribunal we have just been 
contemplating, is the mighty engine by which 
she promptly detects incipient treason in any 
part of her vast realm. Incompetent to di- 
vine the secret thoughts and opinions of men, 
and equally unable to ascertain them by tes- 
timony, she hangs up before her poor, trem- 
bling subjects, the terrors of an endless retri- 
bution, and compels them to unveil their 
bosoms to her eye. The world cannot fur- 
nish a second example of so thorough and 
inexorable a despotism. 

The practical operation of this principle 
might be illustrated by appealing to the 
condition of every country in which it has 
an undisputed predominance. The mass of 
the people in those countries are little else 
than mere machines in the hands of an un- 
principled priesthood. Sunk in ignorance 
and superstition, they have no just ideas of 
their civil rights, of religion, or of the Supreme 



22 THE INTOLERANCE OF 

Being. Indeed, their religion differs from 
that of the heathen mainly in bearing the 
name of Christianity; and their altars, like 
that which the apostle saw at Athens, might 
fitly bear the inscription, " To the Unknown 
God." 

I leave these details, however, to advance 
another step in depicting the intolerance of 
the system. It has been shown that the 
Church of Rome not only forbids men to 
read the Scriptures or other books, without 
her permission, but denies their right to hold 
any opinions not accordant with her own; 
and that she claims the right to look into their 
breasts as often as she may see fit, and know 
precisely what they do believe. This would 
be a monstrous tyranny, even if that faith 
and discipline to which she exacts so rigid a 
conformity, were sanctioned by the word of 
God. But what words can express its enor- 
mity, when it is considered that darkness and 
light are scarcely more at variance than the 
system she seeks to impose upon men's con- 
sciences, and the sacred Scriptures. It were 
some mitigation of her impiety, if her intol- 
erance were directed against error and vice: 
but the thing she mainly abhors, and for the 
destruction of which she puts forth her craft 



THE CHURCH OP ROME. 23 

and power, is God's own holy and precious 
truth. It is her hatred and intolerance of 
the truth, that shapes and directs every 
part of the policy we have been considering. 
She has never manifested a tithe of the indig- 
nation against the shameless vices of her own 
ecclesiastics, that she has against the " truth 
as it is in Jesus." The fact is notorious, that 
she traffics in crimes as men traffic in mer- 
chandize. In the famous " tax books of the 
Roman Chancery," published before the light 
of the Reformation was diffused over Europe, 
and of which, according to Dr. Merle,* "more 
than forty editions are extant," crimes were 
arranged upon a graduated scale, with the 
price of absolution affixed to each, so that 
an individual could know just what the per- 
petration of any particular crime would cost 
him. This spiritual tariff varied in different 
countries, and in different editions of the 
work. In the Paris edition of 1520, these 
duties are imposed : — " For perjury, six gross : 
for killing a layman, five gross: ditto an ec- 
clesiastic, from seven to nine: for him who 
kills his father, mother, or other relative, five 
to seven: for bigamy, ten: incest, five." In a 

* Vide History of the Reformation, vol. i. p. 38. 



24 THE INTOLERANCE OF 

manuscript copy in the British Museum, 
"approved by Leo X." A. D. 1520, the scale 
of duties is much higher; e. g. simony, one 
hundred and two gross; perjury, two hundred 
and two; incest, one hundred and two; adul- 
tery by a priest, one hundred and two. It 
was this wholesale traffic in sins by the 
Church, that had so powerful an influence 
upon Luther's mind, and led on ultimately 
to the Reformation. The same traffic she 
carries on still: for the indulgence-mongers 
of our day, differ from Tetzel and his asso- 
ciates, only in transacting the business in a 
less revolting form. 

No such lenity, however, is displayed to- 
ward the truth. The Church of Rome, claim- 
ing a supreme legislative as well as executive 
authority, has, in the first place, substituted 
dogmas of her own, for most of the doctrines 
of the Bible, and then superadded a great 
mass of laws and ordinances, unknown to 
the Scriptures. This system, which bears 
upon its front the impress of the father of 
lies, she requires every human being to em- 
brace, under penalty of anathema. To reject 
it, or any part of it, is heresy : and heresy is, 
in her code, the unpardonable sin. She will 
compound with thieves, perjurers, murder- 



THE CHURCH OF ROME. 25 

ers, and adulterers; but she has no mercy 
for the man who rejects baptismal regenera- 
tion, or denies that a priest can transubstan- 
tiate a bit of bread into the " blood, the soul, 
and the divinity — in short, the whole person 
of Jesus Christ." For such a man there is 
no salvation. The creed of Pius IV., which 
is received by all Romanists as an accurate 
summary of their faith, enumerates (inter 
alia) " the seven sacraments, transubstantia- 
tion, purgatory, indulgences, veneration of 
images, apostolical and ecclesiastical tradi- 
tions, and all other things delivered, defined, 
and declared by the sacred canons and gene- 
ral councils,'' with an anathema of "all things 
contrary thereto ;" and concludes thus: "This 
true Catholic faith, out ofivhich none can be 
saved, which I now freely profess and truly 
hold, I promise, vow, and swear, most con- 
stantly to hold." The same doctrine is laid 
down in the Doway Catechism, as follows: 
" Q. What is mortal sin ? A. It is a wilful 
transgression in matter of weight against any 
known commandment of God, or the church, 
or of some laivful superior. Q. Whither go 
such as die in mortal sin ? A. To hell for all 
eternity." There is an honesty and plump- 
ness about this answer, which one cannot 
3 



26 THE INTOLERANCE OF 

but admire. The preceding answer con- 
victs the whole Protestant world of mortal 
sin; and this one, without the least com- 
punction or evasion, consigns them, not to 
purgatory, from which masses, well paid for, 
might release them, but " to hell for all eter- 
nity." 

But let it not be supposed that these are 
isolated proofs. The decrees of the Council 
of Trent, and other authentic Popish docu- 
ments of similar authority, abound with an- 
athemas against some of the fundamental 
truths of the Bible, and all who embrace 
them. And in the same spirit that Church 
demands of every man an unquestioning re- 
ception of the fables and superstitious prac- 
tices she has sought to graft upon Christian- 
ity. 

" She declares, that whosoever does not 
believe that God is the author of the books of 
Tobit, Judith, and Maccabees, with all their 
falsehood and absurdity, is accursed. She de- 
clares that whosoever does not believe ex- 
treme unction, orders, and matrimony, to be 
sacraments, is accursed. She declares, that 
any one who shall deny that the eucharist 
contains really and substantially, the body 
and blood, soul and divinity of Christ, is ac- 



THE CHURCH OP ROME. 27 

cursed. She declares, that any one who shall 
say, that the anointing of the sick does not 
confer grace, or remit sin, is accursed. She 
declares, that any one who shall say that 
Christ's faithful people ought to receive both 
species in the sacrament of the Eucharist, is 
accursed. She declares, that any one who 
shall say, that in the mass there is not offered 
to God a true and proper sacrifice, is accursed. 
She declares, that any one who shall say, that 
mass ought to be celebrated in the vulgar 
tongue, is accursed. She declares, that any 
one who shall say, that the clergy can law- 
fully contract marriage, is accursed. 

" These, and a multitude of other matters of 
greater or less importance, has the Church of 
Rome chosen to add to its list of essential 
truths, and so absolutely to insist on implicit 
belief, as to s&id men to the stake in this 
world, and to threaten them with eternal fire 
in the next, for the slightest failure in the re- 
quired faith."* 

She even goes further than this — as, in- 
deed, in consistency she must do. She not 
only compels men to receive her additions to 
the gospel, but requires them to reject many 
of the doctrines, and disobey many of the 

* Essays on Romanism, p. 386. 



28 THE INTOLERANCE OF 

precepts clearly laid down in the Scriptures. 
The famous Bull Unigenitus which was is- 
sued by Clement XI. against the Jansenists, 
A. D. 1713, is the last great doctrinal mani- 
festo of the Hierarchy. In this document, 
one hundred and one propositions drawn 
from father QuesnePs "Moral Reflections 
on the New Testament," are condemned as 
"false, captious, ill-sounding, offensive to 
pious ears, scandalous, pernicious, rash, in- 
jurious to the church and its practice, neither 
against the phurch alone, but also against 
the secular power, contumacious, seditious, 
impious, and blasphemous." In a subse- 
quent paragraph, " Patriarchs, Archbishops, 
Bishops, and Inquisitors of heretical pravity" 
are directed " by all means to coerce and com- 
pel gainsayers and rebels, by censures and 
punishments," "the aid of tfte secular arm 
being called in for this purpose, if necessary." 
The following is a sample of the propositions 
against which the Pope discharges this volley 
of abuse, and whose advocates he threatens 
with the civil sword.* 

Prop. 2. " The grace of Jesus Christ, the 
efficacious principle of good, of whatever kind 

* Vide Text-book of Popery, p. 61, and McGhee's Laws 
of the Papacy, p. 215. 



THE CHURCH OF ROME. 29 

it be, is necessary to every good work, and 
without it not only nothing is done, but no- 
thing can be done." 

Prop. 14. " How far remote soever an 
obstinate sinner may be from safety, when 
Jesus exhibits himself to his view in the salu- 
tary light of his grace, it is fit that he should 
devote himself, run to him, humble himself, 
and adore his Saviour." 

30. "All whom God wills to save through 
Christ, are infallibly saved." 

32. " Jesus Christ delivered himself to 
death, to deliver forever the first born of his 
own blood, that is, the elect, from the hand 
of the exterminating angel." 

80. " The reading of the sacred Scripture 
is for all." 

81. "The obscurity of the sacred word of 
God, is no reason for laymen to dispense 
themselves from reading it." 

S2. " The Lord's day ought to be sancti- 
fied by Christians for reading works of piety, 
and above all of the sacred Scriptures. It is 
damnable to wish to withdraw a Christian 
from this reading." 

84. " To take away the New Testament 
from the hands of Christians, or to shut it up 
from them, by taking from them the means 



30 THE INTOLERANCE OF 

of understanding it, is to close the mouth of 
Christ to them." 

These, and such as these, are the proposi- 
tions which Rome pronounces to be " false, 
scandalous, seditious, and blasphemous." 
Not satisfied with burying " the faith deliv- 
ered to the saints," beneath a mass of her 
own inventions and fables, she presumes to 
open the word of God and put the burning 
brand of "falsehood" and " blasphemy" 
upon truths inscribed there by the finger of 
God. To be consistent, she should tolerate 
no one in her communion, who holds these 
sentiments. She should permit no one to 
worship at her shrine, who is not prepared 
to deny that the grace of Jesus Christ is essen- 
tial to the performance of every good work — 
to deny that every sinner, when Christ reveals 
himself to him, should hasten to receive him 
as a Saviour — to deny that all are saved 
whom God wills to save through Jesus Christ 
— to deny that Christ died for his own peo- 
ple — to deny that all men have a right to the 
Scriptures — to deny that the Sabbath ought 
to be sanctified by Christians, in reading the 
Bible and other books of piety ! In a word, 
the alternative she presents to men, is, to 
reject the glorious doctrines of the' Gospel 



THE CHURCH OF ROME. 31 

as " impious," or to suffer the pains and pen- 
alties of heresy. An apostle tells us, " though 
we, or an angel from heaven, preach any- 
other gospel unto you, than that which we 
have preached unto you, let him be accursed." 
The Church of Rome tells us, in effect — 
" Though we or an angel from heaven preach 
unto you the gospel of Christ, let him be ac- 
cursed." Even Balaam exclaimed, when 
asked to curse Israel, "How shall I curse 
whom God hath not cursed?" The holy, 
apostolic Church, " out of which there is no' 
salvation," knows no such scruples. She 
curses, not where God curses, but where he 
blesses; and where he curses, she blesses. 
The principles asserted in the document that 
has been quoted, would have made her curse 
the Bereans for searching the Scriptures, and 
they involve an anathema even against the 
Redeemer himself, for commanding men to 
" search the Scriptures." The more cordially 
and thoroughly we embrace the doctrines of 
the Bible, the more certain are we to incur 
her malediction. 

I have shown that the Church of Rome is, 
in her essential principles, intolerant even of 
mental freedom — that she requires every man 
to think as she thinks — and that there is no- 



32 THE INTOLERANCE OP 

thing she hates so much and anathematizes 
so heartily, as God's own precious truth. 
The question now arises, to what extent does 
she carry her intolerance ? Is her practice 
conformed to her principles ? The answer 
to this question has been anticipated, but it is 
too important to be passed over in a merely 
incidental way. 

The Papal Hierarchy challenges to itself 
the entire and exclusive spiritual jurisdiction 
of the world. It is moreover a State as 
'well as a Church, and claims, by some of its 
Popes and Councils, a direct, by others, an 
indirect, sovereignty over the temporal affairs 
of men. The temporal authority is, it is dis- 
tinctly asserted, secondary to the spiritual; 
and its resources are to be placed at its dis- 
posal, whenever the Church may see fit to 
avail herself of them. Thus "Bellarmine, 
Silvius, and others, say that the Pope has not 
by divine right direct power over the tem- 
poral kingdoms, but indirect; i. e. when the 
spiritual power cannot be freely exercised, 
nor his object be attained by spiritual, then 
he may have recourse to temporal means, 
according to St. Thomas, who teaches that 
princes may sometimes be deprived of their 
rule, and their subjects be liberated from their 



THE CHURCH OF ROME. 33 

oath of fidelity; and thus it has been done 
by Pontiffs more than once."* 

Many of the Popes claim a direct temporal 
power of unlimited extent. Thus Pius V., 
in his Bull against Queen Elizabeth: "This 
one man (the Roman Pontiff) hath God 
appointed prince over all nations and all 
kingdoms, that he may pluck up, destroy, 
scatter, ruin, plant, build." So also Innocent 
III. : " The Church hath given me the pleni- 
tude of spiritual things and the full extent of 

temporal things I enjoy alone the 

plenitude of power, that others may say of 
me, next to God, and 'out of his fulness we 
have received!'" Gregory VII. : "If the 
Pope has power to bind and loose in heaven, 
how much more to loose empires, kingdoms, 
dukedoms, and whatever else mortal man 
may have, and to give them where he will."t 

It is practically the same thing whether a 
direct or an indirect power in temporal things? 
be conceded to the Pope. For what is meant 
by the phrase "indirect power," in this con- 
nexion, as used by Popish writers ? A sen- 
tence or two from Bellarmine, in his chapter 

* Dens, p. 239. 

t Vide Breckinridge and Hughes' Controversy, pp. 242 
and 244. Illustrations of Popery, p. 204. 



34 THE INTOLERANCE OF 

on this subject, will furnish the answer. "It 
is not lawful (he says) to tolerate an infidel 
or heretical king, provided he endeavours to 
seduce his subjects to his heresy or infidelity. 
But to judge whether or not he does seduce 
them to heresy, pertains to the Pope, to whom 
is committed the care of religion: therefore, 
the Pope is to judge whether or not a king is 
to be deposed." 

Every one must see that this is tantamount 
to saying, that kings hold their crowns at the 
will of the Pope. Indeed, his pretended spi- 
ritual sovereignty can easily be made to em- 
brace whatever he chooses to include in it. 
Take the subject of marriage, for example. 
The Church of Rome makes matrimony a 
sacrament. No one can officiate in a sacra- 
ment except an ecclesiastic duly qualified. 
But there is no ministry out of her commu- 
nion. Of course, she alone has the right to 
solemnize marriage. No one can be married, 
no one is truly married, except by a Popish 
priest or bishop — nor, indeed, even then, un- 
less the priest u intend," in his soul and con- 
science, " to convey the grace of matrimony," 
and "intend"'to make the man and woman 
a wedded pair. This single dogma, it will be 
seen, stretches the empire of Rome at once 



THE CHURCH OF ROME. 35 

over the whole extent of the domestic and 
social relations of the race. Her agency is 
as essential to the consummation of a mar- 
riage, as it is to the celebration of the mass. 
The State can no more marry a couple, than 
it can oifer the sacrifice of the mass. And as 
it cannot unite, so it cannot divorce. To 
admit the power of the State to divorce, 
would be to recognize its authority to nullify 
a sacrament : and all sacraments pertain to 
the exclusive jurisdiction of the Church. A 
divorce, therefore, is impossible. The Coun- 
cil of Trent pronounces any one "accursed" 
who shall maintain that a married pair may 
be divorced for any cause whatever. In this 
way is it, that under the guise of a merely 
spiritual supremacy, the Roman Church ar- 
rogates to herself the legislative and judicial 
functions of the State; and sets up a pretend- 
ed right to control every human being in his 
most interesting and important relations.* 

* It was no doubt in virtue of this same spiritual juris- 
diction of the Church, that Bishop Hughes of New York, 
in his pastoral letter a year or two ago. enjoined it upon 
every Roman Catholic congregation in his diocese, to 
place its corporate property in his hands — a requisition 
akin, in principle, to a certain Popish bull issued during 
the wars between the Papists and Huguenots of France, 



36 THE INTOLERANCE OF 

These remarks respecting the extent of the 
power claimed by the Church of Rome, 
seemed essential to a just understanding of 
the question, " Is the practice of that Church 
conformed to the intolerance of her princi- 
ples ?" The autocratic sovereignty over 
human affairs, which she professes to have 
derived immediately from God, is employed 
for the purpose of enforcing that terrible 
spiritual despotism delineated in the former 
part of this work. Bearing in mind that in 
the pontifical schedule of sins, heresy is a 
worse crime than perjury or murder, and that 
heresy consists in not believing precisely as 
Rome believes, even to the extent of pro- 
nouncing many of the essential doctrines of 
the Gospel, "false" and "blasphemous," let 
these facts and documents prove her fidelity 
to her principles. 

In the first place, it was formerly her cus- 
tom, (and may be still,) to excommunicate 
and curse the whole Protestant world every 
year. The celebrated bull, In Coena Domini, 
is ordered to be " diligently studied by the 
clergy," and " to be solemnly published in 

which " prohibited (says Dr. McCrie in his Reformation 
in Spain, p. 246,) orthodox horses from being exported out 
of Spain. 1 ' 



THE CHURCH OF ROME. 37 

the churches once a year, or oftener, and 
carefully taught the people. -' This bull waS 
for a long while annually published with 
great pomp by the Pope at Rome, on the 
Thursday before Easter, and repeated on the 
same day in every Popish chapel and church 
throughout the world, where the civil authori- 
ties would permit it. I shall quote but a sin- 
gle paragraph: — "We excommunicate and 
anathematize on the part of God Almighty, 
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, by the authori- 
ty also of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul, 
and by our own, all Hussites, Wicklephists, 
Lutherans, Zuinglians, Calvinists, Hugo- 
nots, Anabaptists, Trinitarians, and Apostates 
whatsoever from the Christian faith, and all 
and singular other heretics, under whatsoever 
name they may be classed, and of whatso- 
ever sect they may be, and those who be- 
lieve, receive, or favour them, and all those 
who defend them in general, whosoever they 
be, and all those who without our authority 
and that of the Apostolic See, knowingly 
read or keep, print, or in any way whatso- 
ever, from any cause, publicly or privately, 
upon any pretence or colour whatsoever, 
defend their books which contain heresy, or 
treat of religion; also, schismatics, and those 



38 THE INTOLERANCE OF 

who pertinaciously withdraw themselves or 
secede from obedience to us, and to the Ro- 
man Pontiff for the time being."* 

The preamble to this bull assigns "chari- 
ty" as the motive for its annual republica- 
tion: the design of it is, to "preserve the 
unity and integrity of the Catholic faith," 
and to " procure the utmost peace and tran- 
quillity of the Christian world." Whereupon 
a late British writer forcibly remarks : " What 
a mockery is it to talk of laws making a na- 
tion tranquil when a set of Popish bishops 
and priests are breathing secretly into the 
ears of one mass of the population, curses and 
execrations against the other, and making it 
religion to do so — cursing them on behalf of 
God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost 
— that blessed name under which the Lord 
Jesus commanded his apostles to proclaim 
mercy and to baptize all who received it. 
What mockery is it to talk of loyalty to an 
excommunicated and accursed sovereign ! — 
of subjection to excommunicated and ac- 
cursed governors ! — of submission to laws 
administered by excommunicated and ac- 
cursed judges ! — of peace and charity with 
excommunicated and accursed neighbours !"t 

* Laws of the Papacy, p. 52. f lb. 



THE CHURCH OF ROME. 39 

Who can wonder at the hatred, the bitter 
hatred, not merely of Protestantism but of 
Protestants, which pervades the mass of the 
people in all Popish countries, when the min- 
istrations of the priesthood and the ordinances 
of the church, are thus employed to feed 
their malevolence, and teach them to regard 
Protestants as the foes alike of God and 
man. 

Another thought may be thrown out be- 
fore leaving this document. Protestant minis- 
ters are sometimes censured for their unchari- 
tableness in speaking harshly of the papal 
system. But what would be thought of a 
Protestant minister who should summarily 
pronounce from his pulpit, all Roman Catho- 
lics, and all who believe, receive, or favour 
them, and all who read their books, "ac- 
cursed" "in the name of God Almighty, Fa- 
ther, Son, and Holy Ghost!" 
- The excommunication and malediction of 
Protestants is the first step with Rome, in 
carrying out her principles. To deny their 
right to toleration is the second. A very 
few authorities will suffice on this point. 

Peter Dens thus lays down the law:* 
"The rites of other infidels [Jews having 

* Pp. 107, 108, 114, 117. 



40 THE INTOLERANCE OF 

been previously named,] viz. pagans and 
heretics, in themselves (considered), are not 
to be tolerated; because they are so bad, that 
no truth or advantage for the good of the 
church can be thence derived: except, how- 
ever, unless greater evils would follow, or 
greater benefits be hindered." 

Again, he says, (same page,) that heresy 
" is not to be tried or proved, but extirpated ; 
unless there may be reasons which may ren- 
der it advisable that it should be tolerated." 

Hear, on the same subject, the Popish pre- 
lates of Belgium. No sooner had the king 
of the Netherlands taken possession of his 
dominions, than they addressed to him a 
strong remonstrance against the toleration of 
all denominations. " Sire," they say, " we 
do not hesitate to declare to your majesty, 
that the canonical laws which are sanctioned 
by the ancient constitutions of the country, 
are incompatible with the projected constitu- 
tion which would give in Belgium equal fa- 
vour and protection to all religions." In other 
words, the canonical laws, which are recog- 
nized by the whole Roman church, are in- 
compatible with religious toleration. They 
afterwards go so far in this document, as dis- 
tinctly to intimate to the king, that if any 



THE CHURCH OF ROME. 41 

religion but their own is tolerated, they and 
their adherents will be found opposed to the 
laws and the government;* an avowal of 
which it is difficult to decide whether its 
frankness or its effrontery be the greater. 

Not less explicit is the testimony of Pius 
VII. Writing to his nuncio at Venice in 1805, 
he reminds him, that, according to the laws 
of the church, heretics cannot hold any pro- 
perty whatever, since the crime of heresy 
ought to be punished by confiscation of goods. 
He also tells him, that the subjects of an 
heretical prince, should be released from 
every duty to him — freed from all obligation 
and all homage. But he adds, very consist- 
ently, this lamentation: "In truth we have 
fallen on times so calamitous, and so humili- 
ating to the spouse of Jesus Christ, that it is 
not possible for her to practice, nor expedient 
to recall, so holy maxims ; and she is forced 
to interrupt the course of her just severities 
against the enemies of her faith ." In other 
words; she ceases to persecute them, only 
because she lacks the power. Again, in his 
his letter to the cardinals, of Feb. 5, 1808, he 
says, alluding to Bonaparte's proposal to ex- 

* Breckinridge and Hughes, p. 103. 
4 



42 THE INTOLERANCE OF 

tend toleration to all sects : " It is proposed 
that all religious persuasions should be free, 
and their worship publicly exercised; but we 
have rejected this article as contrary to the 
canons, and to the councils, to the Catholic 
religion, and to the welfare of the State, on 
account of the deplorable consequences which 
ensue from it." Here we have the deliberate 
declaration of a Roman Pontiff within the 
present century, that religious toleration is 
contrary to the canons, the councils, yea, and 
to the Catholic religion itself. So they teach, 
and so they act. Toleration is unknown to 
this day in all thoroughly Popish countries. 
Fond as the papal ecclesiastics in this country 
are of talking about religious freedom and 
the mild genius of their religion, they know 
perfectly well that any Protestant minister 
who should go to Rome and undertake to 
preach the gospel or distribute bibles in that 
city, would be instantly seized by the Pope's 
officers and cast into prison. This is the kind 
of toleration enjoyed within the Pope's tem- 
poral dominions. 

But Rome is not satisfied with anathema- 
tizing heretics and denying their right to toler- 
ation; she insists upon her right to persecute 
them. This right has been asserted by her 



THE CHURCH OF ROME. 43 

standard authors, by her popes, by her coun- 
cils, and, in fine, in every way in which it 
was possible for her to proclaim it. 

Peter Dens teaches that " baptized infidels, 
such as heretics and apostates usually are, 
also baptized schismatics, may be compelled 
even by corporal punishments to return to the 
Catholic faith and the unity of the church." 
P. 107. 

Again, he asks, (p. 117,) "Are heretics 
rightly punished with deathV J The an- 
swer is as gentle and Christian-like as could 
be expected from an accredited expounder of 
the papal creed. It runs thus : " St. Thomas 
answers, Yes; because forgers of money, or 
other disturbers of the State, are justly pun- 
ished with death, therefore also heretics y 
who are forgers of the faith, and, experience 
'being the witness, grievously disturb the 
State." 

The sentiments of Leo X. on this subject 
must be known to all who have read Dr. 
Merle's admirable History of the Reforma- 
tion; every page of which exhibits the in- 
tolerance of Popery. It will be sufficient to 
quote here the fact, that among the forty-one 
prepositions of Luther, condemned by the 
Pontiff in 1520, (see vol. ii. p. 102,) was this 



44 THE INTOLERANCE OF 

one, to wit: "To burn heretics is contrary 
to the will of the Holy Spirit." 

The proposition here condemned by the 
Pope, was subsequently controverted by 
Cardinal Bellarmine, the great Roman theo- 
logian, whose argument will put us in pos- 
session of the true Popish doctrine respecting 
persecution. 

"We will briefly show (says Bellarmine) 
that the Church has the power, and it is her 
duty to cast off incorrigible heretics, espe- 
cially those who have relapsed, and that the 
secular power ought to inflict on such, tem- 
poral punishment, and even death itself. 

1. This may be proved from the Scriptures. 

2. It is proved from the opinions and laws 
of the emperors, which the Church has al- 
ways approved. 3. It is proved by the 
laws of the Church. 4. It is proved by the 
testimony of the fathers. Lastly, It is 
proved from natural reason. For, (1) it is 
owned by all that heretics may of right be 
excommunicated; of course they may be 
put to death. This consequence is proved, 
because excommunication is a greater pun- 
ishment than temporal death. (2) Expe- 
rience proves that there is no other remefiy; 
for the Church has, step by step, tried ail 



THE CHURCH OF ROME. 45 

remedies ; — first, excommunication alone, 
then, pecuniary penalties ; afterwards, ban- 
ishment; and lastly, has been forced to put 
them to death to send them to their own 
place. (3) All allow that forgery deserves 
death, but heretics are guilty of forgery of 
the word of God. (4) A breach of faith by 
man towards God, is a greater sin than of a 
wife with her husband. But a woman's 
unfaithfulness is punished with death ; why 
not a heretic's ? (5) There are three grounds 
on which reason shows that heretics should 
be put to death. The first is, lest the wicked 
should injure the righteous. The second, 
that by the punishment of a few, many may 
be reformed. For many who were made 
torpid by impunity, are roused by the fear 
of punishment; and this we daily see is the 
result where the inquisition flourishes. Fi- 
nally, it is a benefit to obstinate heretics to 
remove them from this life, for the longer 
they live the more errors they invent, the 
more persons they mislead, and the greater 
damnation do they treasure up to themselves. 
" It remains (he proceeds) to answer the 
objections of Luther and other heretics. Ar- 
gument 1, From the history of the Church 
at large. < The Church,' says Luther, ( from 



46 THE INTOLERANCE OF 

the beginning even to this time, has never 
burned a heretic. Therefore it does not 
seem to be the mind of the Holy Spirit that 
they should be burned/ I reply, this argu- 
ment admirably proves, not the sentiment, 
but the ignorance or impudence of Luther. 
For as almost an infinite number were 
either burned or otherwise put to death, 
Luther either did not know it, and was there- 
fore ignorant ; of if he knew it, he is con- 
victed of impudence and falsehood ; for that 
heretics were often burned by the Church, 
may be proved by adducing a few from 
many examples." [He instances Donatists, 
Manicheans, and Albigenses.] 

" Argument 2. ' Experience shows that 
terror is not useful in such cases.' I reply, 
Experience proves the contrary; for the Do- 
natists, Manicheans, and Albigenses, were 
routed and annihilated by arms. 

"Argument 13. 'The Lord attributes (says 
the Protestant) to the Church, the sword of 
the Spirit, which is the word of God; but 
not the material sword. Nay, he said to 
Peter, who wished to defend him with a ma- 
terial sword, Put up thy sword into the 
scabbard/ I answer: As the Church has 
ecclesiastical and secular princes, who are 



THE CHURCH OF ROME. 47 

her two arms, so she has two swords, the spi- 
ritual and the material; and therefore, when 
her right hand is unable to convert a heretic 
with the sword of the Spirit, she invokes the 
aid of the left hand, and coerces heretics 
with the material sword. 

"Argument 18. 'The apostles (say the 
Protestants) never invoked the secular arm 
against heretics.' Answer: The apostles 
did it not because there was no Christian 
prince on whom they could call for aid. But 
afterwards, in Constantine's time, the Church 
called in the aid of the secular arm." (Bel- 
larmine, ch. xxi. lib. 3.) 

The atrocious doctrine so elaborately de- 
fended in this passage from the pen of Rome's 
ablest champion, has been sanctioned times 
without number by her Popes and Councils. 

In the fifth Council of Toledo, Can. 3, the 
holy fathers say : — " We the holy council pro- 
mulge this sentence or decree pleasing to God, 
that whosoever hereafter shall succeed to the 
kingdom, shall not mount the throne till he 
has sworn among other oaths, to permit no 
man to live in his kingdom who is not a 
Catholic. And if after he has taken the reins 
of government, he shall violate this promise, 
let him be anathema maranatha in the sight 



48 THE INTOLERANCE OF 

of the eternal God, and become fuel of the 
eternal fire." (Caranza Sum. Cone. p. 404.) 

In the fourth general Council of Lateran, 
held under Innocent HI., A. D. 1215, they 
say : — " We excommunicate and anathema- 
tize every heresy extolling itself against this 
holy, orthodox, catholic faith, and condemn 
all heretics." Heretics are left to the secular 
powers to be duly punished. The secular 
powers are required to take an oath, that 
they will exterminate to their utmost power, 
all heretics within their dominions devoted 
by the Church. And if any temporal lord 
neglect to " purge his territory of this hereti- 
cal filth," he is, in the first instance, to be 
excommunicated : then, on another year's 
delay, his vassals are to be absolved from their 
allegiance, and his country turned over to 
any Catholics who may be able to possess 
themselves of it. As an inducement to the 
execution of this sanguinary edict, it is fur- 
ther provided, that Catholics who "gird them- 
selves for the extermination of heretics, shall 
enjoy that indulgence and be fortified with 
that holy privilege, which is granted to them 
that go to the help of the Holy Land." 

It is in vain alleged by the modern de- 
fenders of Popery, that the Albigenses, against 



THE CHURCH OF ROME. 49 

whom the famous decree just cited was lev- 
elled, held various pernicious opinions in 
morals, and were a lawless and seditious 
people. Their character for substantial or- 
thodoxy in doctrine, and general purity of 
conduct, has been amply vindicated by nu- 
merous writers. It is an expedient worthy 
of Rome, to try to palliate her atrocities by 
blackening the characters of her victims. But 
even allowing that the Albigenses were all 
that she affirms them to have been, what jus- 
tification does this furnish of her conduct? 
Who gave her the cognizance of civil crimes 
in foreign states? What business has she to 
call upon princes and magistrates to perse- 
cute and murder a class of their subjects 
whom she deems worthy of death ? Whence 
came her right to depose these princes and 
appropriate their territories to whoever might 
be strong enough to seize them, in case they 
should refuse to hunt and destroy these un- 
happy " heretics?" And conceding that she 
had all this power — that she did not trans- 
cend her prerogative in issuing this decree — 
is it such a document as ought to emanate 
from the rulers of the Christian Church? 
Does it breathe the spirit of the gospel ? 
Would Christ and his apostles have publicly 
5 



50 THE INTOLERANCE OF 

anathematized a whole people, and doomed 
them to hell, and then called upon kings and 
princes to march their armies against them 
and slay them without mercy, under pain of 
being dethroned and cursed themselves? Let 
such an edict as the one under consideration, 
be inserted in the New Testament — after 
the sermon on the mount, for example, or 
after that memorable rebuke which our Sa- 
viour gave to James and John for wishing to 
command fire to come down from heaven 
and consume the Samaritan village — and see 
how it will read there. How consistent would 
it appear with the Redeemer's character, 
how much in keeping with his usual spirit, 
for him, after he had said, " The Son of man 
is not come to destroy men's lives but to save 
them," to promulgate an edict enjoining it 
upon princes and potentates to exterminate 
all unbelievers in their dominions with fire 
and sword, and promising the rewards of 
heaven to those who were the most vigilant 
in butchering heretics ! Such is precisely the 
harmony between the Church of Rome and 
the Christianity of the Bible. 

The authorities which have been cited, 
may suffice to show that intolerance per- 
vades the whole theory of the Romish 



THE CHURCH OP ROME. 51 

Church ; and that the right and duty of the 
Church to persecute heretics, have been 
avowed by her popes and councils, in the 
most explicit manner. Her practice has 
been in revolting harmony with her princi- 
ples. The bloody edict last cited, was fol- 
lowed by the slaughter of two hundred thou- 
sand Albigenses. And in the course of the 
persecutions against that people and the 
Waldenses, which continued for several cen- 
turies, not less than one million of victims 
are supposed to have been offered up on the 
altar of the Roman Moloch. One scene, in 
the progress of these cruelties, is thus depict- 
ed : — " The population of the city of Beziers, 
amounting to fifteen thousand persons, to- 
gether with many thousands more, who had 
fled to the city from the surrounding vil- 
lages, were massacred without mercy. i This 
whole multitude/ says Sismondi, 'at the mo- 
ment when the crusaders became masters of 
the gates, took refuge in the churches: the 
great cathedral of St. Nicaise contained the 
greater number. The canons, clothed with 
their choral habits, surrounded the altar and 
sounded the bells, as if to express their pray- 
ers to the furious assailants; but these sup- 
plications of brass were as little heard as 



52 THE INTOLERANCE OF 

those of the human voice.' It will be per- 
ceived from this description that the popula- 
tion of Beziers consisted partly of Roman 
Catholics; but they were involved in the 
common destruction ; for when the knights 
of the army inquired of the Papal legate, 
Arnold Amalric, abbot of Citeaux, how they 
could distinguish the Roman Catholics from 
the heretics, he replied, < Kill them all; the 
Lord will know well who are His/ The 
historian proceeds: 'The bells ceased not to 
sound, till of that immense multitude which 
had taken refuge in the church, the last had 
been massacred. Neither were those spared 
that had taken refuge in the other churches; 
seven thousand dead bodies were counted in 
that of the Magdalen alone. When the cru- 
saders had massacred the last living creature 
in Beziers, and had pillaged the houses of all 
that they thought worth carrying off, they 
set fire to the city in every part at once, and 
reduced it to a vast funeral pile. Not a 
house remained standing, not a human being 
alive.'" This occurred A.D. 1297. Three 
or four hundred years afterwards, these 
scenes were renewed in the valleys of Pied- 
mont. In one place they mercilessly tor- 
tured not less than an hundred and fifty 



THE CHURCH OF ROME. 53 

women and their children, chopping off the 
the heads of some, and dashing out the brains 
of others against the rocks. And in regard 
to those whom they took prisoners, from 
fifteen years old and upwards, who refused 
to go to mass, they hanged some, and nailed 
others to the trees by their feet, with their 
heads downwards.* It was on this occasion 
that Milton wrote the following sonnet: 

u Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones 
Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold : 
E'en them who kept thy truth so pure of old, 

When all our fathers worshipped stocks and stones, 

Forget not ; in thy book record their groans, 
Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold 
Slain by the bloody Piedmontese, that rolled 

Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans 
The vales redoubled to the hills, and they 

To heaven. Their martyred blood and ashes sow 
O'er all the Italian fields, where still doth sway 

The triple tyrant ; that from these may grow 
A hundred fold, who, having learned thy way, 

Early may fly the Babylonian wo." 

Perhaps no country has furnished so many 
Protestant martyrs as France. The massa- 
cre of St. Bartholomew's day, August 24, 

* Vide Tract I., of the Presbyterian Board of Publica- 
tion, Series on Popery, pp. 41, 42. 



54 THE INTOLERANCE OF 

1572, was the result of a design deliberately 
formed for the utter extinction of Protestant- 
ism in that country. " At midnight the toc- 
sin tolled the signal of destruction, and the 
carnage which was then begun, lasted seven 
days. The king, Charles IX., encouraged 
the murderers in their work, shouting to 
them with all his might, ' Kill/ < kill !' The 
queen gazed with delight on thousands of 
naked bodies, covered with wounds and wel- 
tering in their gore. Five hundred noble- 
men, and five thousand other Protestants, 
were murdered in Paris, and at least twenty 
thousand, some say as many as seventy 
thousand, in the kingdom at large." And 
how were the tidings of this event received 
at Rome? How did the pretended vicar of 
the meek and lowly Jesus of Nazareth, de- 
port himself on the occasion? "He went in 
public procession to one of the churches, to 
praise God for it. He congratulated the 
king on the accomplishment of an exploit 
i so long meditated, and so happily executed, 
for the good of religion/ He caused a me- 
dal to be struck in perpetual remembrance 
of so godly an action, bearing on one side 
his own effigies, and on the other, a repre- 
sentation of the slaughter of the Huguenots; 



THE CHURCH OF ROME. 55 

and he ordered an eminent artist to execute 
three paintings, representing the bloody deed, 
as ornaments for his own palace, where they 
are still to be seen. These are the tender 
mercies of Rome !"* 

A still more dreadful massacre of the 
Huguenots took place on the occasion of the 
revocation of the edict of Nantes. This 
edict, by which toleration was secured to 
Protestants, had been in force since 1598. 
But in 1685, the Popish prelates and the 
Jesuits prevailed upon Louis XIV. to rescind 
it, and to attempt the extermination of his 
Protestant subjects. The time will not per- 
mit me even to present an outline of the bar- 
barities which ensued in every part of France. 
Great numbers of the Huguenots were slain, 
and upwards of half a million of them es- 
caped to foreign lands; many of them to 
this country, where their descendants still 
reside, and constitute (it may be added) one 
of the most enlightened and valuable por- 
tions of our population. 

Another memorable tragedy in the annals 
of Popery, is the Irish Massacre of 1641, 

* Vide Tract L, of the Presbyterian Board of Publica- 
tion, Series on Popery, p. 44 ; and Hist. Popery, p. 332. 



56 THE INTOLERANCE OF 

This was the result of an extended and well 
organized conspiracy for exterminating the 
Protestants in Ireland. Archbishop Usher 
and other authors state, that prior to the 
massacre, the Roman priests were assiduous 
in persuading the people not to spare a man, 
woman, or child, of the Protestants; assuring 
them, that " it would do them much good to 
wash their hands in the hearts' blood of the 
heretics." The common, ignorant people 
taught by their Jesuit priests, that the " Pro- 
testants were worse than dogs, for they were 
devils; and therefore the killing of them was 
a meritorious act, and a rare preservative 
against the pains of purgatory; for, (said 
they) the bodies of those who fall in the holy 
cause shall not be cold, before their souls 
shall ascend up into heaven." These instruc- 
tions were not lost. The massacre commenced 
most fitly on the 23d of October, the feast of 
Ignatius Loyola: and the Jesuits had the 
satisfaction of knowing that the festival of 
their founder, was worthily commemorated 
by the ferocious slaughter of many thousand 
Protestants. Hume, the historian, says that 
the cruelty which characterized this transac- 
tion, was " the most barbarous that ever, in 
any nation, was known or heard of. No age> 



THE CHURCH OF ROME. 57 

no sex, no condition, was spared. The wife 
weeping for her butchered husband, and em- 
bracing her helpless children, was pierced 
with them, and perished with the same stroke ; 
the old, the young, the vigorous, the infirm, 
underwent the like fate, and were confound- 
ed in one common ruin. In vain was recourse 
had to relations, to companions, to friends; 
all connexions were dissolved, and death was 
dealt by that hand from which protection 
was implored and expected. Without .pro- 
vocation, without opposition, the astonished 
English (Protestants) being in profound peace 
and full security, were massacred by their 
nearest neighbours with whom they had long 
upheld a continued intercourse of kindness 
and good offices. But death was the lightest 
punishment inflicted by those enraged rebels; 
all the tortures which wanton cruelty could 
devise, all the lingering pains of body and 
anguish of mind, the agonies of despair, 
could not satiate revenge excited without in- 
jury, and cruelty derived from no cause. . . . 
The weaker sex themselves, naturally ten- 
der and compassionate, here emulated their 
more robust companions in the practice of 
every cruelty. Even children, taught by the 
example, and encouraged by the exhortations 



58 THE INTOLERANCE OF 

of their parents, essayed their feeble blows 
on the dead carcasses or defenceless children 
of the English. If any where a number 
assembled together, and, assuming courage 
from despair, were resolved to sweeten death 
by revenge upon their assassins, they were 
disarmed by capitulations and promises of 
safety, confirmed by the most solemn oaths ; 
then the rebels (in the immutable spirit of 
Popery) with perfidy equal to their cruelty, 
made them share the fate of their unhappy 
countrymen. Others, more ingenious still in 
their barbarity, tempted their prisoners with 
the fond hope of life, to imbrue their hands 
in the blood of their friends, brothers, and 
parents ; and having thus rendered them ac- 
complices in guilt, gave them that death 
which they sought to shun by deserving it. 

"Amidst all these enormities the sacred 
name of religion sounded on every side, not 
to stop the hands of these murderers, but to 
enforce their blows, and to steel their hearts 
against every movement of human or social 
sympathy. The English, as heretics abhor- 
red of God and detestable to all holy men, 
were marked out by the priests for slaughter ; 
and of all actions, to rid the world of these 
declared enemies to Catholic faith and piety, 



THE CHURCH OF ROME. 59 

was represented as the most meritorious in 
its nature ; which, in that rude people — suf- 
ficiently inclined to atrocious deeds — was fur- 
ther stimulated by precepts and national pre- 
judices, empoisoned by those aversions, more 
deadly and incurable, which arose from an 
enraged superstition. While death finished 
the sufferings of each victim, the bigotted as- 
sassins, with joy and exultation, still echoed 
in his expiring ears, that these agonies were 
but the commencement of torments infinite 
and eternal." 

Such is the account given by an infidel 
historian, of the Irish Massacre. The prime 
agency of the Church of Rome in planning 
and executing it, is so indisputable, that it 
may with justice be appealed to as an illus- 
tration of the ferocious spirit of Popery. 

There is one other chapter in the records 
of Popish intolerance and blood-thirstiness, 
which ought not to be passed over in silence 
here; I mean, that which pertains to the In- 
quisition. The popular histories of this in- 
fernal institution, (one of the best of which, 
let me add, has been published by the Pres- 
byterian Board of Publication,) are too well 
known to make it necessary for me to enter 
into a detailed account of it, even if my limits 



60 THE INTOLERANCE OF 

would permit. It is difficult to believe that 
such an institution as this is proved to have 
been, could have existed any where out of 
hell; or that any beings except devils could 
have been guilty of the atrocities which were 
constantly practised by the inquisitors and 
priests in the name of the Christian religion. 
" In Spain (says the author of the < Book of 
Popery/*) there were at one time no less 
than eighteen different inquisitorial courts: 
and besides the vast numbers who were im- 
mediately connected with them as officers, 
there were twenty-thousand familiars, or 
spies, scattered throughout the country, whose 
business it was to mingle in all companies 
and drag all suspected persons to the cell of 
the Inquisition. ... No family could separate 
for the night, but the appalling conviction 
must have forced itself upon them, that they 
were, not improbably, taking of each other a 
final leave. Fancy the horror of the scene, 
when the prison-carriage was heard at the 
dead of the night, to stop before the door, and 
immediately a loud knock was accompanied 
by the stern command, "Open to the Holy 
Inquisition" Every inmate in the dwel- 
ling felt his blood curdle at the sound: the 

* Published by the Board of Publication. 



THE CHURCH OF ROME. 61 

head of the family was called to give up the 
mother of his beloved and helpless children; 
he dared not even to whisper an objection or 
let fall a tear; but hastening back to her 
chamber, led her out, and placed her in the 
custody of an incarnate demon; — and then 
as the prison-carriage rolled away to the dun- 
geons, how was that husband convulsed with 
agony, as he contemplated her as the inno- 
cent victim of a long and living death ! ... So 
secret were the movements of these familiars, 
that it was not uncommon for members of 
the same family to be ignorant of each oth- 
er's apprehension. One instance is recorded 
by Limborch, in which a father, three sons, 
and three daughters, all of whom occupied 
the same house, were separately seized, and 
thrown into the dungeons of the Inquisition, 
and knew nothing of each other's fate till 
after seven years of torture, when those of 
them who survived, met to mingle their death 
groans at an auto-da-fe" The accused were 
not informed of the charges alleged against 
them; nor of the names of the witnesses. No 
opportunity was afforded them of examining 
witnesses or introducing countervailing testi- 
mony. Every species of cunning and sub- 
tlety was employed to induce them to impli- 



62 THE INTOLERANCE OP 

cate themselves by confessing some real or 
constructive offence against the Church. If 
these arts failed, torture was applied. The 
modes of torture were various; the three 
principal were the torture by the pulley, the 
torture by fire, and the torture by the rack. 
The last of these, which was the one most 
commonly used, was inflicted by stretching 
the victim (divested of all his outer clothing) 
on his back, along a wooden horse or hollow 
bench, with sticks across like a ladder, and 
prepared for the purpose. To this his feet, 
hands, and head were strongly bound in such 
manner as to leave him no room to move. 
In this attitude he experienced eight strong 
contortions in his limbs, viz. two on the fleshy 
parts of the arm above the elbow, and two 
below, one on each thigh, and also on the 
legs. He was besides obliged to swallow 
seven pints of water slowly dropped into his 
mouth on a piece of silk or ribbon, which, by 
the pressure of the water, glided down his 
throat, so as to produce all the horrid sensa- 
tions of a person who is drowning. At other 
times, his face was covered with a thin piece 
of linen, through which the water ran into 
his mouth and nostrils, and prevented him 
from breathing. 



THE CHURCH OP ROME. 63 

For the torture by fire, the prisoner was 
placed with his legs naked in the stocks ; the 
soles of his feet were then well greased with 
lard, and a blazing chafing-dish applied to 
them, by the heat of which they became per- 
fectly fried. When his complaints of the 
pain were loudest, a board was placed be- 
tween his feet and the fire, and he was again 
commanded to confess; but this was taken 
away if he persisted in his obstinacy. 

But I have no disposition to dwell on these 
revolting details. It is more to my purpose 
to state that Llorente, in his History of the 
Inquisition, estimates the number of ite vic- 
tims in Spain alone, from 1481 to 1812 (three 
hundred and thirty-one years) at three hun- 
dred and forty-one thousand and twenty- 
one, of whom thirty-one thousand nine hun- 
dred and twelve were burnt to death ! The 
sufferings of these last were usually aggra- 
vated by every kind of indignity. The bru- 
talizing influence of the system upon the 
popular mind, is strongly evinced by the fact, 
that even a bull-fight or a farce was, with the 
Spaniards, as Dr. Geddes remarks, "a dull 
entertainment compared with an auto-da-fe" 
Not only immense crowds of the common 
people, but the nobility, and in some cases 



64 THE INTOLERANCE OF 

the royal family also, came together to enjoy 
the spectacle. That they did " enjoy" it, is 
apparent from the manner in which it was 
conducted. No sooner had the executioner 
completed his arrangements, and the Jesuits 
in attendance, announced to the prisoners that 
they "left them to the devil who was stand- 
ing at their elbow to receive their souls," 
than "a great shout was raised, and the 
multitude united in crying, 'Let the dogs' 
beards be trimmed/ 'Let the dogs' beards 
be trimmed/ This was done by thrusting 
flaming furze, tied to the end of a long pole 
agailf st their faces ; and the process was often 
continued till the features of the prisoners 
were all wasted away, and they could be no 
longer known by their looks. The furze at 
the bottom of the stakes was then set on 
fire; but as the sufferers were raised to the 
height of ten feet above the ground, the 
flames seldom reached beyond their knees, 
so that they were really roasted and not 
burned to death." — Is it going too far, to 
say that the main actors in these horrible 
barbarities, were more like fiends than men? 
And yet, they were the ministers of religion, 
the accredited servants and representatives of 
the Holy Apostolic Church of Rome. That 



THE CHURCH OF ROME. 65 

Church, it is true, staggering under the in- 
tolerable odium she has incurred by these 
unparalleled cruelties, is now trying to make 
the world believe that the Inquisition was 
not in any sense an Institution of the 
Church, but a tribunal of the civil govern- 
ment ! This pretence is worthy of its paren- 
tage. That some of the Catholic govern- 
ments availed themselves of the Inquisition 
as an effective engine for extorting money 
from their subjects and putting obnoxious 
individuals out of the way, is not denied. 
But no candid man can read Llorente, or 
any other authentic history of the "Holy 
Office/' without being convinced that the 
Inquisition was altogether a creature of the 
Hierarchy. It emanated from Rome. The 
Inquisitors were appointed at Rome. All 
their rules of procedure were either framed 
at Rome, or subject to revision, modification, 
and approval there. To Rome they were 
responsible. From Rome they received their 
rewards. The plea now set up that "the 
Inquisition was entirely and avowedly a 
political and not an ecclesiastical institution," 
is a wicked and Jesuitical device for hood- 
winking Protestants to the abominations of 
Popery, and it is refuted by their own 
6 



66 THE INTOLERANCE OF 

standard writers. Johannes Devoti, e. g. 
uses this decisive language on the subject, 
as quoted by that late eloquent and able de- 
fender of Protestantism, Dr. John Breckin- 
ridge, in his controversy with the present 
popish Bishop of New York. " The con- 
gregation of Cardinals at Rome, instituted by 
the Pope, in which the Pope presides, is the 
head of all Inquisitors over the whole world; 
to it they all refer their more difficult matters; 
and its authority is final. It is rightly and 
wisely ordered, that the Pope's power and 
office sustain this institution. For he is the 
centre of unity and head of the Church; and 
to him Christ has committed plenary power, to 
feed, teach, rule, and govern all Christians." 
(p. 486.) 

If it is still alleged that the victims of the 
Inquisition were executed not by the ecclesi- 
astics but by the secular authority, this also 
may be conceded: but the concession can 
avail as little to the Church of Rome, as it 
would to the priests and rulers of the Jews, 
to admit that it was not they, but Pilate who 
crucified the Son of God. For what was the 
precise part performed by the ecclesiastics in 
the management of the Inquisition ? In the 
first place, as we have seen, they derived their 



THE CHURCH OF ROME. 67 

appointments directly or indirectly from the 
Papal See. The code under which they 
acted, was from the same source. They de- 
termined what should be regarded as heresy. 
They arrested whomsoever they chose. They 
superintended and applied all the tortures 
preliminary to final condemnation or acquit- 
tal. They decided who should be put to 
death. All the arrangements for the burning 
of the condemned, were made under their 
supervision. They required the civil magis- 
trates, by authority of various Bulls of the 
Popes, to commit heretics to the flames with- 
in six days after they, the Inquisitors had 
pronounced sentence upon them, under pain 
of excommunication and other censures. 
And yet Romanists would have us believe 
that the Inquisition was not an institution of 
their Church, because after the Inquisitors had 
condemned a man as an apostate and heretic, 
and handed him over to the magistrates to 
be put to death, the hypocritical wretches 
were accustomed to add: " Nevertheless we 
earnestly beseech and enjoin the said secular 
arm, to deal so tenderly and compassionate- 
ly with him, as to prevent the effusion of 
blood, or danger of death!" This is the 
argument to prove that Rome is guiltless of 



68 THE INTOLERANCE OF 

the atrocities of the Inquisition! Let her 
have the full benefit of it. The Inquisition 
itself does not more incontestably identify her 
with the prophetic Antichrist, by demon- 
strating her hatred of the saints and her 
eagerness to shed their blood, than this sup- 
posed vindication does, by showing the 
effrontery with which she can " speak lies in 
hypocrisy.'' 

I have thus endeavoured to exhibit the 
" Intolerance of the Church of Rome." 
I have shown that she is essentially and in- 
curably intolerant in her very frame-work, 
and her fundamental principles; that she is 
intolerant even of mental freedom; that she is 
intolerant of God's holy and blessed truth, 
above every thing else; that she insists upon 
the right to persecute those whom she re- 
gards as heretics, and upon the obligation of 
all princes and magistrates to aid at her bid- 
ding in their subjugation or destruction; and 
that she has carried out these principles in 
the actual slaughter of immense multitudes 
of men, for opinion's sake merely, both in 
religious wars and massacres instigated by 
her, and by the more refined and cruel tor- 
tures of the Inquisition. Every count in 



THE CHURCH OF ROME. 69 

this indictment has been substantiated by 
authentic proofs. And here the discussion 
might with propriety be arrested. There is, 
however, a sentiment widely diffused among 
Protestants, which goes far to neutralize such 
testimonies as have now been presented, in 
relation to the intolerance of Popery. This 
sentiment is, that the Church of Rome has 
undergone a change — that her cruelties be- 
long to another age — and that she is now as 
humane and benevolent in her spirit as any 
of the Protestant churches. This sentiment 
must be briefly examined before we close. 
Its fallacy must, indeed, be manifest to all 
who have followed the train of argument 
by which we have reached our general con- 
clusion. 

For what is it we have charged upon 
Rome, and proved against her? Not simply 
that she has in some specified instances per- 
secuted the people of God, and made Protest- 
ant blood flow like water; but that she has 
persecuted on principle — that intolerance is 
blended with the very elements of her organi- 
zation—that wherever she has the power 
and opportunity, she cannot but persecute, 
without compromising her principles and be- 
traying the trust which, she asserts, has been 



70 THE INTOLERANCE OF 

confided to her. And here it is that her 
persecutions differ so widely from those of 
Protestants. It is not denied that Protestants 
have been guilty of persecution. But their 
persecutions took place, for the most part, 
just after they threw off the Papal yoke, and 
when they were still tainted with the spirit 
in which they had been reared. Their per- 
secutions also have been local and temporary. 
And, again, the persecuting tenets have long 
ago been expunged from the Protestant 
Creeds and Confessions: and true Protestants 
with one accord reprobate as unchristian and 
wicked, the persecutions practised by their 
ancestors. 

The Roman Church, however, can vindi- 
cate her persecutions on none of these grounds. 
It has been shown, by her own witnesses, 
that the right and even the duty of persecu- 
ting for opinion's sake, enters fundamentally 
into her constitution. This right, let it be 
remembered, she has never repudiated: as 
indeed, how could she? An " infallible" 
church must be unchangeable. What she 
has claimed once, she must always claim. 
What she has been, she must be. She 
may embrace many amiable and benevo- 
lent people among her members; but we do 



THE CHURCH OF ROME. 71 

not look to the laity .in a church where the 
people are nothing and the priesthood every- 
thing, to ascertain the dogmas and the spirit 
of the system. We demand that the same 
authority which emitted the bloody edicts of 
former days, shall revoke them, and renounce 
the pretended right to persecute heretics. Is 
this an unreasonable requisition? Are we to 
judge that Church by the opinions of its pri- 
vate members, and not by its public acts and 
monuments? Are we to withdraw the charge 
of persecution against her while her creed 
remains unaltered, and her exterminating 
bulls against heretics uncancelled, merely be- 
cause we may happen to know some very 
exemplary Roman Catholics, or because the 
hierarchy has, from its crippled state, ceased 
to persecute for a season ? 

But this is not all. Whatever may be 
thought by Roman Catholic laymen, the 
priesthood are never heard condemning the 
persecutions in which their church has been 
engaged. With all the outcry they make, 
because the atrocities she perpetrated a few 
centuries ago, are laid to her charge in this 
age of intelligence and refinement, they are 
very careful not to censure those atrocities. 
If they believe they were wrong, why do 



12 THE INTOLERANCE OF 

they not say so? The t fair inference from 
their silence is, that they approve of them; 
that they are prepared to set their hands 
to every sanguinary bull that has gone forth 
from the Vatican, and to justify every scene 
of carnage which Popish intolerance has 
created. 

This, I have said, is a fair inference from 
the fact just stated 5 but we are not left to in- 
fer it merely. The creed of Pius IV. has 
already been mentioned. That creed, which 
is universally received by the Roman Catho- 
lics of the present day, re-affirms all the 
persecuting canons of former days. It runs 
thus: "I likewise undoubtedly receive and 
profess all other things delivered, defined, 
and declared, by the sacred canons of general 
councils, and particularly the Holy Council of 
Trent. And I condemn, reject, and anathe- 
matize all things contrary thereto, and all 
heresies which the church has condemned, 
rejected, and anathematized." Every Ro- 
manist, then, in adopting this creed, sanctions 
as well the intolerant principles of the system, 
as the persecutions to which they have led. 

Then, again, there is the Bishop 1 s oath, 
with the famous clause, " Haereticos, schis- 
maticos, et rebelles eidem Domino nostro, pro 



TIIE CHURCH OP ROME. 73 

posse persequar et impugnabo." " Heretics 
schismatics, and rebels to our said Lord, 
(the Pope,) with all my power I will perse- 
cute and impugn" Does this import a 
change in the spirit and pretensions of Rome? 
Let me quote, as this subject has been men- 
tioned, a curious piece of history respecting 
it, which is given by Mr. Southey in one of 
his able Essays on the Catholic Question :■■ — 
" It appears that a Russian Roman Catholic, 
when taking the oath at his consecration as 
archbishop of Mohilow in 1785, stopped at 
this clause, and refused to proceed. He was 
supported by the empress Catharine, and the 
court of Rome found it expedient to allow 
him to take the oath without the obnoxious 
clause. But though the scarlet-coloured beast 
drew in its horns when Catharine would else 
have aimed a blow at them, the concession 
was so made as to show that no change had 
taken place in the disposition of the Roman 
Catholic Church. The principle that heretics 
were to be impugned and persecuted, was not 
renounced; though its avowal was suspend- 
ed by indulgence, in an heretical kingdom 
where the sovereign, most properly, would 
not suffer it ta be made. Every where else 
the Roman Catholic prelates continued, at 
7 



74 THE INTOLERANCE OF 

their consecration, to swear that they, to the 
utmost of their power, would impugn and 
persecute heretics, schismatics, and rebels to 
their Lord, the Pope. Some six years after- 
wards, the Irish prelates considered that the 
clause might perhaps stand in the way of 
the hopes which they were then entertaining; 
for that a British king, a British minister, a 
British House of Lords, and a British House 
of Commons, consisting entirely of heretics, 
schismatics, and rebels to the Pope, might 
think it no very rational or politic act to 
remove restrictions from persons who were 
bound by oath to impugn and persecute them, 
if ever they had the power. They represent- 
ed this at Rome: and their Lord the Pope 
then conceded to them the same indulgence, 
which he had granted in the case of Russia, 
but not without observing in the preamble to 
the castrated oath, that i through the ignor- 
ance or dishonesty of some persons, certain 
words (to wit, the clause complained of) had 
been perverted into a strange sense/ — Per- 
verted by ignorance or dishonesty! Was 
dishonesty ever more apparent than in this 
preamble, and can any ignorance be so great 
as not to perceive it? . . . as not to know in 
what sense these words were intended by 



THE CHURCH OF ROME. 75 

Pope Hildebrand when he framed the oath 
— in what sense the clause has always been 
understood — and in what sense it has been 
acted upon,/?ro posse, every where ? Do we 
not know how Bonner and Gardiner under- 
stood it? Can we be mistaken in what the 
persecution of heretics means, in the oath of 
a Roman Catholic bishop ? Bellarmine may 
tell us what he, as well as the heretics in his 
days, who were unreasonable enough to com- 
plain of it, understood by it. — i Dicunt qui- 
dem haeretici se magnam persequutionem 
ab antichristo pati, quia interdum comburun- 
tur aliqui de eorum numero.' Perverted 
by ignorance or dishonesty to a strange sense ! 
Why the words contain in them flint and 
steel, fire and faggot, the weapons of St. Bar- 
tholomew's day, the swords and halters of 
Alva and Cardinal Granville's executioners, 
the racks and engines of the Inquisition."* 

I have quoted this passage because this 
identical oath, persecuting clause and ally 
has actually been taken by every Roman 
Catholic prelate in the United States. This 
was explicitly acknowledged by Bishop Pur- 
cell of Ohio, in his discussion with Mr. Alex- 
ander Campbell, as may be found by refer- 

* Southey's Essays, Vol. ii. pp. 416—418. 



76 THE INTOLERANCE OP 

ring to pp. 317, 31S, 346, 350, of the printed 
volume containing the report of the debate. 
Nothing can be more palpable than the in- 
compatibility between this oath, and the oath 
of naturalization prescribed by our Constitu- 
tion, in which the individual swears that he 
" doth absolutely and entirely renounce and 
abjure all allegiance and fidelity to every 
foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty 
whatever." But I cite the oath now, only 
to refute the common opinion that Popery 
has changed — to show that the Popish pre- 
lates in our own country have sworn to im- 
pugn and persecute all heretics, pro posse, to 
the utmost of their power. Happily their 
" power" is as yet too restricted to render 
them very formidable. Nor will it be likely 
to increase much, except through the apathy 
or spurious liberality of nominal Protestants. 
Another evidence that the Roman Church 
is unchanged, is found in the fact that she 
still seeks to enforce that intellectual tyran- 
ny over her subjects, which has already been 
described as one of the most revolting forms 
of her intolerance. If she had changed in 
any thing for the better, it would have been, 
in an age of light like the present, in this: 
she would have emancipated the minds of 



THE CHURCH OP ROME. 77 

her members from the servile bondage under 
which they have groaned for centuries, and 
given them access, if not to the tree of life, at 
least to the tree of knowledge. But in this 
particular, as in all others, she has proved 
true to her principles. Even so recently as 
the year 1819, an edition of the Index Libro- 
rum Prohibitorum was printed at Rome by 
authority. This Index prohibits, under the 
penalties of the Inquisition, such works as 
Bacon De Augmentis Scientiarum, Locke 
on the Human Understanding, Cudworth's 
Intellectual System, and Milton's Paradise 
Lost. Nay, will it be believed, the celebrated 
sentence against Galileo, in 1633, which con- 
signed him to the dungeons of the Inquisition, 
for maintaining that the sun was the centre 
of the planetary system, and that the earth 
revolved around it, is republished, and there- 
fore re-affirmed, in this very volume. "The 
work of Algarotti, (adds Sir Robert Inglis, 
from whom I quote,) on the Newtonian sys- 
tem, shares the same fate: so that every 
modification of science, in other words, every 
effort of free inquiry, every attempt to disen- 
gage the mind from the trammels of authori- 
ty, is alike and universally consigned to the 
Inquisition. Am I not justified in saying 



78 THE INTOLERANCE OF 

that the Church of Rome remains unchanged, 
the unchangeable enemy to the progress of 
the human mind?" 

To these facts may be added an official 
paper, the authenticity of which is undis- 
puted, and which bears date as recently as 
the 24th of April, 1843. It is a " Pastoral 
Address of the Bishop of Quito, in South 
America. It was written for the purpose of 
informing his Diocese that the National Con- 
vention had, under his auspices and at his 
request, adopted an explanatory resolution, 
precluding the idea, that under the new Con- 
stitution of the Republic of the Equator, reli- 
gious toleration would be allowed to all de- 
nominations of Christians. I shall quote the 
first part of the letter, and append to it the 
very pertinent comments of two of the secu- 
lar papers. 

PASTORAL ADDRESS OF THE BISHOP OF QUITO. 

"We, Dr. Nicholas de Arteta, by the 
grace of God and of the Holy Apostolic See, 
Bishop of Quito — to all the faithful Chris- 
tians of our Diocese; health and grace in the 
Lord. 

" Repletus sum consolatione, superabundo 
gaudio in omni tribulatione nostra. 



THE CHURCH OF ROME. 79 

"My beloved children, our heart was full 
of joy at the zeal which you have shown to 
preserve intact the Holy Catholic religion 
which we profess, and has warmly partici- 
pated in the tribulation which you felt at the 
apprehension that the sixth article of the new 
constitution would open the way for the in- 
troduction of worship and the corruption of 
Christian morals. This was the opinion of 
the theologians and canonists of the secular 
and regular clergy, whom I convoked on 
Holy Friday on account of the pressure of 
time, because the right of petition to the Con- 
stituent Convention could have been used 
only the day following. * * * 

"In consequence, the Convention adopted 
a prudent and wise resolution, to tranquillize 
our consciences. Yes, beloved diocesans, 
they are pleased to explain the aforesaid 
article, by giving us to know, that, far from 
protecting toleration, which we justly feared, 
it confirms and strengthens the law which 
authorizes the prelates to have cognizance 
of causes of faith, as did the extinguished 
tribunal of the Inquisition, with this restric- 
tion only, that they shall not, in this respect, 
molest foreigners in their private belief, while 



80 THE INTOLERANCE OP 

they do not propagate their errors, to pre- 
vent scandal and seduction." 

It is gratifying to see that the secular pa- 
pers of our country are not all blind to the 
natural tendency of such an occurrence or 
incapable of deducing from it a just conclu- 
sion. The New York Express remarks, in 
relation to it, as follows : 

" As it is alleged by Roman Catholics that 
their system has become less tyrannical and 
sanguinary, than it was some hundred years 
ago, the above article from one of the South 
American Republics, may enable our readers 
to judge for themselves what foundation 
there is for it. Here is a public declaration, 
in an official document from the Bishop of 
Quito, who, having convoked the theolo- 
gians and canonists, obtained their senti- 
ments respecting a provision of the Consti- 
tution which had just been formed, which 
opinion was, that c instead of protecting tole- 
ration? which his reverence says he justly 
feared, 'it confirms and strengthens the 
law which authorizes the prelates to have 
cognizance of causes of faith, as did the 
extinguished tribunal of the Inquisition? 
That is, a man accused of heresy, or in other 



THE CHURCH OF ROME. 81 

words, of being a Protestant, may be tried by 
a blood-thirsty tribunal, composed of charac- 
ters similar to those who belonged to the 
Spanish Inquisition, and be burned at the 
stake at the will and pleasure of these 
butchers." 

The Philadelphia North American, a pa- 
per which deserves well of Protestants, for 
the ability and fearlessness with which it 
resists the political aggressions of Popery, is 
equally explicit : 

"Now and then it happens that we en 
counter a good Protestant, who wonders at 
the apprehension entertained by us of the 
extension of the Roman Catholic faith in the 
United States. Admitting, as no one can 
deny, that in times past the practice of that 
Church was merciless to all without her pale, 
our easy friends answer the argument against 
her spirit drawn from history, by asserting 
that she is now changed, reformed, human- 
ized, christianized with the age. They 
cannot believe that in this nineteenth cen- 
tury it is possible for the Church of Rome to 
assert her supremacy by sword, fire, and 
rack, as she was wont to do. They think 
that she is in the first place too feeble, and 



82 THE INTOLERANCE OF 

in the second, too wise to apply brute force 
to change men's consciences. 

" We heartily wish that existing circum- 
stances could sustain this opinion. If we 
thought there was no danger to the State, or 
to the life, liberty and property of the citizen 
from the possible domination of the Roman 
Catholic Church in this republic, we should 
conceive it no part of our duty as daily jour- 
nalists, to take note of her creed, discipline, 
or practice. But it is a fact, beyond the 
doubt of any unprejudiced man, that her pre- 
lates and bigoted members are not to be 
trusted with power in any State which de- 
sires civil or religious liberty. A proof in 
point is brought before us, which suggests 
these remarks, and we would earnestly call 
the attention of lukewarm Protestants to it." 

A still more recent exemplification of the 
unchanged intolerance and cruelty of the 
Church of Rome, is furnished in the case of 
Dr. Kalley, an excellent Scotch physician 
and minister, residing in the island of Ma- 
deira, who has recently undergone a long 
imprisonment for no other crime than that of 
preaching the gospel to the natives, and that 
in his own house ; an imprisonment which 



THE CHURCH OP ROME. 83 

would probably have terminated in his exe- 
cution, had not the British government in- 
terposed and obtained his release. 

But testimonies need not be multiplied. 
An enlightened and candid inquirer has but 
to look abroad upon the Roman Catholic 
world to see that Popery is unchanged. 
Now, as of old, it is the inflexible enemy of 
human improvement. Ignorance, degra- 
dation, falsehood, Sabbath-profanation, the 
decay of public virtue, the general corruption 
of morals, hatred of pure Christianity, and 
the extinction of religious freedom, follow in 
its train, as naturally as the corresponding 
blessings attend the untrammelled dissemi- 
nation of the pure gospel of Christ. 

To attempt to neutralize such proofs as 
these, of the unchanged character of Popery, 
by alleging that the Church of Rome is not 
actually persecuting Protestants now, is 
chimerical in the extreme. For, as we have 
seen, this is true only in a partial sense, and 
there is a very good reason why she is not 
persecuting as formerly, on a larger scale. 
Bunyan has interwoven it in his wonderful 
allegory. "I espied," he says, describing 
the Valley of the shadow of Death, " a little 



84 THE INTOLERANCE OF 

before me a cave, where two giants, Pope 
and Pagan, dwelt in old times, by whose 
power and tyranny, the men whose bones, 
blood, and ashes, lay there, were cruelly put 
to death. But by this place Christian went 
without much danger, whereat I somewhat 
wondered; but I have learned since, that 
Pagan has been dead for many a day ; and 
as for the other, though he be yet alive, he 
is, by reason of age, and also of the many 
shrewd brushes that he met with in his 
younger days, grown so crazy and stiff in his 
joints, that he can now do little more than 
sit in his cave's mouth, grinning at pilgrims 
as they go by, and biting his nails because 
he cannot come at them." Had Bunyan 
written in our day, he would probably have 
represented the decrepit old giant as renew- 
ing his youth, and secretly preparing to sally 
forth after pilgrims, panoplied in the blood- 
stained armour that he wore of old. 

The Church of Rome, then, is unchanged 
and unchangeable. Her vital principles in- 
volve this; facts confirm it; and the testi- 
mony of God himself substantiates it, with 
an explicitness which leaves nothing further 
to be desired in the way of evidence. For 



THE CHURCH OF ROME. 85 

he distinctly teaches in 2 Thess. ii. 8, and 
in Rev. xviii., that that Church instead of 
being reformed, is to be thoroughly and 
awfully destroyed, and that until that pe- 
riod arrives, she will remain what she has 
always been, "the woman drunken with 

THE BLOOD OP THE SAINTS, AND WITH THE 
BLOOD OF THE MARTYRS OF JESUS." All the 

intolerance we have charged and proved 
upon her informer days, is proved to belong 
to her still. And if any man shall succeed, 
as many charitable persons suppose they 
can do, in demonstrating the contrary, i. e., 
in showing that she is not as intolerant as 
she once was, he will, by the same process, 
demonstrate her fallibility, and subvert her 
claim to be considered as the Church of 
Christ. We have, therefore, not merely the 
testimony of Scripture, of history, of obser- 
vation, and of innumerable Protestant wit- 
nesses of unimpeachable character, but the 
testimony of the Church of Rome herself, to 
the point, that she is now, and will be as 
long as God suffers her to live, the same per- 
secuting, cruel, blood-thirsty power that she 
was three centuries ago. 
And now, in conclusion, there is one senti- 



S6 THE INTOLERANCE OF 

ment which must commend itself to every 
individual who has carefully considered the 
testimonies adduced in these pages. It is 
this; viz., that it is the imperative duty of 
every man who desires the welfare of reli- 
gion, or the prosperity of his country, to 
oppose, by all moral means, the efforts 
making to propagate Romanism in the 
United States. 

The Church of Rome is, as we have 
shown, radically and thoroughly hostile to 
human improvement and happiness. Its 
principles are subversive both of civil and 
religious liberty. No country can be free, 
no people can enjoy an enlightened prosperi- 
ty, no man's rights can be safe, where its 
principles are carried out. Meek and gen- 
tle as it appears now, it is only the quietude 
and the verdure which grace the slumbering 
volcano. The fires are there still; and when 
the occasion offers, they will burst forth and 
renew the scenes of devastation and death of 
former years. Let American Christians pon- 
der this. Let our statesmen, our professional 
men, the editors of our periodical press, and 
all others gifted with the means of influen- 
cing their countrymen, inquire if the fact be 



THE CHURCH OF ROME. 87 

not as has been stated. Above all, let our 
intelligent youth acquaint themselves with 
this colossal system of falsehood and cruelty, 
and prepare to repel its growing aggressions 
upon our liberties. 

One argument which has, until lately, de- 
terred many Protestants from taking a decid- 
ed stand upon this question, has already been 
examined, and I think I may be allowed to 
say, refuted; viz., the plea that Popery has 
changed. This plea has found great favour 
among our citizens. One reason of this is, 
that the great mass of them have never seen 
Popery as it exists in Roman Catholic coun- 
tries. Another is, that they have not gene- 
rally studied the polity and history of that 
Church. And a third is, that Popery has 
usually carried itself so meekly in this Pro- 
testant land, that mere superficial observers 
have been deceived as to its true character. 
Within the last few years, however, the sys- 
tem has developed itself more fully. In the 
efforts made to exclude the Bible from our 
common schools; in the public burning of 
the Scriptures; in the open pandering to po- 
litical parties for sectarian purposes; and in 
various other measures of the Papal priest- 



S8 THE INTOLERANCE OP 

hood, people are beginning to see indications 
that the Popery of our day is identical with 
the Popery of the dark ages. The plea that 
the Roman Catholic Church is changed, 
therefore, is fast losing its weight with intel- 
ligent Protestants. 

Others have remained inactive from a 
feeling that the Roman Catholic Church was 
a branch of the true Church, and that, not- 
withstanding its errors, Christian charity was 
violated by waging a controversy with it. 

The craft of Satan in constructing the sys- 
tem has already been adverted to. If the 
system was all heresy, its history all blood, 
or its adherents all vicious and cruel, there 
would be no difficulty in convincing Protest- 
ants of every sort that it was their duty to 
oppose it. But there is enough of truth in 
its theoretic theology, enough of patriotism 
and beneficence in its annals, and enough of 
personal worth and purity among its support- 
ers, to blind the eyes of those who, from 
whatever cause, are not accustomed to pene- 
trate beyond the surface of things. We need 
not, we ought not to identify Roman Catho- 
lics with all the abominations of their church. 
We cheerfully concede all that may be claim- 



THE CHURCH OF ROME. 89 

ed for individuals among them on the score 
of intelligence, refinement, and virtue. But 
beyond this we cannot go. If the positions 
laid down in this discussion have been estab- 
lished, the papal system, as a system, is hos- 
tile alike to God and man. It is antichrist : 
i. e. it is the great enemy of our Lord and 
Saviour Jesus Christ. It has from the begin- 
ning persecuted his truth and persecuted his 
saints. We should have no more scruple 
about opposing it, than we should about op- 
posing Mohammedanism or Buddhism, if an 
attempt were made, and persevered in from 
year to year, to introduce either of those sys- 
tems into this country. Romanists, as indi- 
viduals, are to be treated with all possible 
kindness, and their rights of every kind re- 
spected: but it is as much our duty to resist 
by all moral means the spread of their system, 
as it is to repel any other scheme which 
makes war upon human liberty and happi- 
ness, and tends to subvert the gospel of Christ. 
This inference appears to me not merely 
logical but unavoidable, from our premises. 
If the Church of Rome is the intolerant, 
blood-thirsty organization which we have 
8 



90 THE INTOLERANCE OF 

proved her to be — if she is, in truth, the 
scriptural antichrist — it is self-evident that to 
abet her is to oppose Christ, and that to re- 
fuse to resist her aggressions, is to refuse 
obedience to Christ. 

If it be asked, How is she to be opposed? 
I answer, by light and love — by dissemina- 
ting truth in a Christian spirit. Or, to be 
more specific, by withholding aid from Ro- 
mish churches, schools, colleges, orphan asy- 
lums, and other institutions — by circulating 
the Bible throughout the land, and especially 
by placing it in the hands of as many of our 
Roman Catholic citizens as can be reached, 
and using other kindred means to instruct 
them in the truth — by resisting all efforts for 
driving the Scriptures from our common 
schools — by carefully teaching our children 
and the youth in our Sunday schools, the 
character of Popery, and fortifying them 
against its devices — by enlightening the pub- 
lic mind on the subject of Romanism through 
the pulpit, the press, and the channels of so- 
cial intercourse — by sustaining judicious or- 
ganizations for the promotion of the ends 
here contemplated — and by fervent and uni- 



THE CHURCH OF ROME. 91 

ted prayer for the deliverance of those who 
are led captive by the " man of sin/' and 
for the prosperity and universal triumph of 
the kingdom of Christ. 



APPENDIX. 



EXTRACT FROM THE ADDRESS OF THE AMERICAN PROTESTANT 
ASSOCIATION, 1843. 

But we must be allowed to remind you, that notwith- 
standing the modest guise which that church puts on, 
in this and other Protestant countries, no evidence 
whatever has been produced, emanating/rom the Pa- 
pal See, that it has abated its pretensions or laid aside 
its persecuting tenets. We are not satisfied with 
the disclaimers of Roman Catholic laymen or the 
denials of Romish priests. We insist upon a renun- 
ciation from the only authority in the church which 
has the right to make one. We demand that the same 
power which enjoined the persecutions of former days, 
shall express its disapproval of them, and repudiate 
the pretended right to persecute for opinion's sake. 
When proof of this sort is produced, we may listen 
to the suggestion that Popery has put off its intoler- 
ance. — We do not, however, rest here. We have a 
witness at hand who will be deemed both competent 
and credible as to the point under consideration. This 
witness is Gregory XVI. the reigning Pope; and the 
document from which we quote is his famous Encyc- 
lical Letter of August 15th, 1832.* 

* This Letter was published at the time in the Roman 
Catholic papers in this country. 



APPENDIX. 93 

14 From that polluted fountain of indifference flows 
that absurd and erroneous doctrine, or raiher raving, 
in favour and in defence of * liberty of conscience, 1 
for which most 'pestilential error, the course is opened 
hy that entire and wild liberty of opinion which is 
every where attempting the overthrow of civil and 
religious institutions; and which the unblushing im- 
pudence of some, has held forth as an advantage of 
religion. * * * From hence arise these 
revolutions in the minds of men, hence this aggrava- 
ted corruption of youth, hence this contempt among 
the people of sacred things, and of the most holy in- 
stitutions and laws; hence, in one word, that pest of 
all others most to be dreaded in a State, unbridled 
liberty of opinion." 

x\gain : " Hither tends that worst and never suffi- 
ciently to be execrated and detested liberty of the press, 
for the diffusion of all manner of writings which some 
so loudly contend for and so actively promote." 

And again: "Nor can we augur more consoling 
consequences to religion and to government, from the 
zeal of some to separate the Church from the State, 
and to burst the bond which unites the priesthood to 
the empire. For it is clear that this union is dreaded 
by the profane lovers of liberty, only because it has 
never failed to confer prosperity on both.'' 

Here is documentary evidence of the highest kind 
to show that Popery is unchanged, to prove that the 
Popery of the nineteenth century and the Popery of 
the sixteenth are the same. We have it officially 
promulgated by the present Pope, that Liberty of 
Conscience, Liberty of Opinion, the Liberty of the 
Press, and the Separation of Church and State, 
are four of the sorest evils with which a nation can 
be cursed! Both as Protestants and as American 
citizens, we count the rights which are here assailed 
as among our dearest franchises : and we cannot look 
on in silence and see the craft and power of Rome 
systematically and insidiously employed to subvert 
them. We deplore the necessity which calls for the 



94 APPENDIX. 

measure; but believing as we do that patriotism and 
Christianity demand it, we have united, and we invite 
all who love our institutions to unite with us in repel- 
ling the aggressions of the Papal Hierarchy. 

Our contest is not with the Roman Catholics as 
individuals. We would not, if we could, abridge 
their rights and privileges in the slightest degree. 
We abhor persecution for opinion's sake under every 
form, and we recognize their right to the same free- 
dom of thought and action that we claim for ourselves. 
We leave it lo the Pope to denounce ■ liberty of 
opinion,' * liberty of conscience,' and the 4 liberty of 
the press,' as hostile to human happiness and danger- 
ous to the welfare of States. It is because the system 
is thus, by the accredited exposition of its * infallible' 
Head, at war with our most sacred rights and inter- 
ests, that we feel bound to oppose it. Whatever vir- 
tues may adorn the characters of individuals in that 
Sect, we appeal to the whole history of the Romish 
Church, in proof of the position, that the principles 
assumed in the recent Encyclical Letter have been 
actually carried out wherever Rome has had the power 
to enforce them. So that in resisting the efforts now 
making to establish this system among us, we are in- 
fluenced by no love of controversy, by no personal 
antipathies, by no sectarian or party ends, but by a 
grave and imperative sense of duty to our country, to 
posterity, and to God. 

Reiterating the sentiment that persecution is as 
much at variance with all our Protestant and Ameri- 
can feelings as it is coincident with the genius and 
spirit of Popery, we respectfully remind our country- 
men that it is opposition to Popery, which has secured 
to them an open Bible and the privilege of confessing 
their sins to God instead of a priest. We remind 
them that opposition to Popery has created the differ- 
ence between our free, happy, and prosperous Repub- 
lic, and the States of South America, which seem 
doomed to perpetual anarchy and depression. We 
remind them that opposition to Popery has given to 



APPENDIX. 95 

Europe all that she enjoys of civil and religious liber- 
ty: that the progress of the arts and sciences, the 
mitigation of social evils, the diffusion of knowledge, 
the right understanding and observance of the recip- 
rocal duties of princes and subjects, magistrates and 
people, and the improvement of mankind in rational 
and social happiness, have for the last three centuries, 
gone hand in hand with opposition to Popery : and 
that just in proportion as the opposition to Popery has 
been relaxed in any Protestant country, superstition 
and infidelity have increased, vice has abounded, ig- 
norance and discontent have prevailed among the 
people, and every great national interest has dete- 
riorated. 

If confirmation of these statements be required, 
we have it in the present relative condition of the 
principal Protestant and Roman Catholic countries. 
Compare Italy with Prussia: compare Spain with 
England : compare Mexico and the South American 
Republics with the United States. The superiority 
of the Protestant countries is known and read of all 
men. To what is it owing? Not to physical causes 
certainly: for in these the Roman Catholic countries 
have the advantage. Look at Spain, for example — 
luxuriant, beautiful Spain, with her vine-clad hills 
and her genial climate, the very garden of Europe. 
There was a time (under the Moorish dynasty, and 
immediately after its downfall) when her name was 
a tower of strength among the nations ; now, the 
decrepitude of a premiture dotage is upon her, and 
. with the little strength that remains to her, she is 
tearing out her own vitals. What has turned this 
Eden into an Aceldama] What has made that once 
noble race, to such an extent, a nation of sensualists 
and gladiators? What has spread the pail of death over 
all that was lovely, and generous, and refined, in that 
land of song ] The answer may be given in one word, 
Popery. Popery persecuted the Reformation out of 
Spain, as it did out of Italy. It summoned to its aid 
the chains and dungeons, the racks and faggots of the 



96 APPENDIX. 

Inquisition, and, with fiendish fury, drove it from her 
soil. The martyr-blood which was then shed, has 
not yet ceased to cry to heaven for vengeance. Spain 
permitted Popery to rob her of the pure Christianity 
which was offered her ; and God gave her up to serve 
the master she had chosen. There, for three hundred 
years he has swayed an undisputed 6ceptre. And 
the result is before us. In climate and soil, Spain is 
unchanged ; for these it was beyond the spoiler's 
power to blast. Every thing else he has blighted and 
cursed, — every thing in her morals, every thing in 
her thrift and industry, every thing in her literature, 
every thing in her laws, — his curse is in her cities 
and in her hamlets, in her cottages and in her palaces, 
— indeed, it might be supposed by one ignorant of 
her history, that Spain, instead of being the most loyal 
of all lands to the Papal See, was peopled with arch- 
heretics, for whose impieties all the curses of the 
" greater excommunication" had been descending 
upon her for three centuries. And the history of 
Spain is the history of all other Papal lands. Ignor- 
ance and superstition, social degradation and political 
oppression, follow in the train of Popery as naturally 
as death follows the plague. The nation which sur- 
renders itself to its control, is a doomed nation. Its 
embrace is like the embrace of that celebrated image 
of the Virgin, in the Inquisition, which clasped the 
wretched victim in its arms, and, folding him to its 
breast, transfixed him with a thousand nails at once. 



THE END. 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Jarr; 2006 

PreservationTechnologies 

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Cranberry Township. PA 16066 
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